


When the World Stopped

by missbeizy



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: M/M, RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-14
Updated: 2014-12-14
Packaged: 2018-03-01 09:47:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 50,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2768663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missbeizy/pseuds/missbeizy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It stops and starts and breathes through blue eyes this time around.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When the World Stopped

He looked just like any other guy on the street, really. There was nothing that stood out about his looks, unless you counted the simplicity—handsome, brown, and friendly. His smile lit his whole face. One of those guys that you know sends his Mom a card on Mother's Day without having to be reminded. One of those guys that stops to hold doors for people long after he should've passed through them and then won't even expect a thank you.

What distracted me wasn't his commonplace looks or his smile, but the familiarity between us. How his laughter seemed to cue mine, how I threw my arms around him and hugged him as if we'd known each other all our lives, how his eyes lingered on my eyes, how he watched me; as if going to the extreme was the only was to express what we both felt.

So from the start that "thing" between us was there, noticeable despite its infancy. And you know? It hit the ground running that day...and never really looked back.

 

Married—and I should've known. Saw the ring but didn't make the connection. I was too busy hoping that I'd feel as comfortable with the rest of the cast as I did with him. Too busy learning him. Too busy to predict that that single band of gold would present problems in the very near future.

One of the first things I noticed about Sean was the fatherly vibe that he seemed vaguely self-conscious about. He didn't want to come off as a complete Daddy figure and I understood why, but at the same time the whole attempt was moot. Once I asked him about his daughter he went on and on with a gleam in his eye. An intimate, cultivated look that only a father could have. Maybe that's what first drew me to him.

I found myself wondering what it would be like to get one of those looks out of him. I wondered what it would be like to see him with his daughter. What was the difference between how he acted around me, and how he acted around his child? What would that difference imply about him?

I was into him right off the bat, and what a guy. I'd worked on my fair share of movie sets. Met plenty of actors and sure, that's great. But generally speaking, you don't delve into a coworker's personality. If you're delving, well; it's gonna be into their character or into their pants and either way, there's no future in it. Everyone is cool with that.

And just exactly how many pairs of pants I'd been in on a movie set—I can count them on one hand—is something I didn't want made public knowledge. The media had this up-and-coming sexy-geek thing going for me. If they only knew how unaccommodating the Hollywood lifestyle was for honest intimacy, especially when you're still bound and gagged by a "child star" aura. 

But Sean wasn't seeing that. He wasn't concerned with my perceived image. I found myself having to try and connect him to his movie roles to remind myself who he was; but in the end I couldn't see him as his work either.

 

His wife and daughter didn't come down to New Zealand right away. The plan was for them to move in after the initial six weeks of "Hobbit training" were finished. When we'd all be settled in our housing and familiar with the city. 

So I took him out for lunch the afternoon of our flight. He'd already said his good-byes to Christine and Ali and seemed torn about leaving and yet excited about arriving in New Zealand. I distracted him by asking bunches of what were probably annoying questions.

"UCLA?" he asked in response, swallowing a mouthful of mashed potatoes. "It was great. Good place, great staff. Still keep in contact with a lot of my professors, even now."

"Bet you had some wild times there," I challenged, waggling a French fry at him.

"Ah, nah," he muttered, giving a you-know-how-it-is sort of smile. "Wasn't like that, really. Besides meeting Chris, of course."

"What about high school?" 

"Crossroads," he answered, pushing food around his plate.

"That 'for the Arts' Crossroads?" I knew that it was a highly prestigious place to study.

"Mm-hmm," he said. 

"I know some people from there," I said, trying to look like I knew what I was talking about.

"Yeah?" He smiled. "Yeah, it was great. Then there was Stella Adler."

"No shit," I laughed, impressed. "You studied with her?"

"Mm," he said, nodding. "It was really intimidating at first. I mean, I had this whole reputation and all, with my parents. So I had to prove myself over and over. Got poked at a lot by the other students. I mean, sure, it was theatre, and I haven't gone that way yet, but she's just a trip—had so much to tell."

"Bet they're kicking themselves now," I said, grinning. "But UCLA. What'd you do there?"

"History, English. Bachelor's in both."

"And how old are you?" I grinned.

"Older than you," he shot back, tongue in cheek, and tossed a napkin at me. "How old are you?"

"Eighteen."

He laughed and sat back in his chair. "I've got ten years on you, then."

"Ha!" I smirked. "That's not much. You'd better get used to it, Samwise, 'cause Frodo here has twelve years on you."

And when he laughed again and offered an eyebrow, his mouth full of fork, I found myself staring at his lips. 

 

The clock on my nightstand read six a.m. on the dot when Sean swatted a pillow over my head. Jumping up, I grabbed said assault weapon and gurgled something unintelligible.

"Eh! Whassat?"

"Weapons," Sean grumbled sleepily, looking ruffled and soft in sweatpants and a t-shirt. "Car's sitting outside. Get dressed, Ringbearer."

I fumbled for my contact lens case, fell off the bed with it in my grip, and stumbled in the direction of the bathroom while Sean disappeared back into the hallway.

We were two weeks into training and the schedule hadn't really beaten me into shape yet. I relied on Sean half the time to get me up. Had to admit that the quaint Master Seanwise had gotten very creative with the waking up. The most popular so far was his arriving twenty minutes early and brewing coffee. The scent lured me cartoon-style by my nose out of sleep better than any other tactic.

Passably dressed, I met Sean in the kitchen, where he delayed me and thrust a hot Styrofoam mug into my hand. "Got your keys?"

"Yes, Dad," I mumbled as he herded me outside, chuckling all the while. The freezing New Zealand morning exploded its subtle, icy hello under my skin. "This weather has it out for me, I'm telling you."

Shivering off the cold inside the warm van, Sean ruffled my already hopelessly ruffled hair. "A morning of fake skewering is ahead, Lijah."

"You're going to be the first Hobbit I slay," I murmured, pulling a childish scowl.

And certainly not the first Hobbit I lay.

Grumbling, I tugged my hood up and pulled the drawstrings so that it closed entirely around my face.

 

There was a night when I started to dream. The first time it happened, I didn't remember anything right away the next morning. The sequence of images floated back to my memory piecemeal throughout the day, like a memory that didn't want to be recalled.

I hated that, you know, when you remember a really important part of a dream at an inappropriate moment. And you want to just explain it to someone, but of course, you'll look really dumb and have to explain the whole dream. And then they'll look at you funny, because a dream only makes sense to the person who had it. And you'll crawl under the mess tent's table and wish you'd never remembered the damned important part in the first place.

The dream started funny, with me being late for my call. One of those I'm-late-and-can't-find-my-pants-or-keys kind of dreams. And then I was Frodo, wandering around Bag End with my velvet vest and pipe, just about to step out into the gardens. There was this surreally bright light—a sort of light I'd never seen before. There was a person outside just behind a rose bush and the light caught a halo of their golden brown hair. Just as my foot hit the dirt and I managed a glimpse it became something else.

And then it was gone altogether. I was left wondering who that was and what it might have meant. But there was no time to linger. I was tiny again, tiny and clutching the hand of someone even tinier and my mother's voice was harsh and metallic because she thought we weren't listening. There was someone else in there with her, but I couldn't tell who.

Of course he's gone, you idiot. What did you expect? Him and his fucking—

Shut up! Shut the hell up! You can't come here preaching to me. I know, alright? I know.

What are you going to do now?

We're going to leave, that's what. He can have the fucking house.

And then I was tugging Hannah's hand and trying to swallow the ugly copper taste in my throat. It didn't matter to my dream self that he had come back and that the pattern of fight-leave-come home continued until I was fifteen; when he finally left for good. When we finally left for good.

Scene change again: and there was Sean saying goodbye to Christine that last morning. I'd seen them for a brief second before our ride carried me on to where I was being dropped off.

The dream stretched out the moment like putty—and it hurt me for reasons I didn't understand, watching them hold each other like that, watching Ali run up and cling to Sean's leg. Putty full of glass.

He's leaving. But not that way. Not that way!

No, not that way. Never that way. Sean isn't him. Sean doesn't—

And that's when I woke up. Woke up with this vague sense of having been with all the characters in my dream. I could tell you what the hair on Frodo's feet really felt like, or explain the way the garden's scent changed when the noonday sunlight was baking it, or how it felt to plainly expect Sam out there working amongst the dirt and growth. And the other part, the real life part, remembering the dark circles under my mother's eyes when she tried to explain to us why she was so upset, and the image of Sean clinging to Christine and Ali clinging to Sean playing over and over.

I'd been Frodo, as I recalled, but I wasn't entirely in his head or made privy to his thoughts. I was there, I was in it, and I had been allowed glimpses. The glimpses were mere blinks and all I could grasp finally was that Frodo had given this funny look out into the garden, searching, yes, I was sure now—sort of waiting for a comforting, familiar sight. Sam? Had to be. Sam doesn't leave. No, not Samwise. Sam's hands are full of earth and his eyes are translucent hazel.

The next time I saw Sean in person, I felt different. I felt as if, on some level, we'd shared the dream and its secret bits and corners. I felt as if he understood. He couldn't have possibly known, of course. I knew that.

But as the weeks passed I grew in the knowledge that Sean understood a lot more about me than I gave him credit for.

 

The closer we got to filming, the more anxious I became. The training was one huge tease, when you got right down to it. I was twitchy and ready to go. (The guys would say that I'm always twitchy and ready to go, but bugger them for the moment.)

And at the same time, the dreams kept layering: new images fusing with old until I had a running movie happening inside my head at night. I was sure that once we started really doing this Rings thing that the dreams would quiet down.

Billy and Dom—and Orli, almost every time—proved to be a marvelous distraction from it all, which was great. I had never felt as comfortable with friends before, and that was saying something. They were absolutely mad, the whole lot of them, but too cool for words.

But no matter how many evenings I spent out with them, I found myself coming back to Sean, whether it was a quick stop-over before I went home, or a phone call to let him know I'd gotten in alright. 

The nights he did come with us, I felt the difference. I became more aware of myself, and of every word I said. I tried to sound less dumb. Deep down I was painfully aware of how educated he was and I didn't want to look half-baked in front of him. Sure, I knew I wasn't stupid, but I couldn't compare my home-schooled education and off-the-cuff intellect with his degrees.

It was my fucking sensitivity, anyway. He didn't wear that intelligence on his sleeve. He never flaunted it; even when there were moments that any other guy would've taken advantage of.

"Astin's like..."

I looked at Billy, who sat with a pint and a drunken smile plastered across his lips.

"He's a real smart guy, yeh know? He's got it down, man, like...yeh know. Real good man. Really, I mean that." Billy gestured with the mug, spilling some of it onto the table.

Behind me Dom and Orli were grinding on the dance floor with a tiny slip of a girl between them. She looked very happy at having been caught. I snorted something about a Hobbit-Human-Elf sandwich to Billy, who snickered into his drink.

Sean smiled at me, tipped the slender neck of his beer bottle in my direction, and went back to watching us all with a content sort of look about him. He fit in so well. I had to laugh later on when people insisted on pushing his all-American Daddy image so hard that they couldn't even fathom him having fun with his friends.

 

I don't remember exactly when I started sleeping over at his place. It was maybe two weeks before we were set to start filming. And it was a bad idea. Well, looking back, definitely, yeah. Bad. 

Dom and Billy were insane when they were drunk—of course I followed suit—and I needed a place to go afterwards where I wouldn't fall asleep in a bath tub or make passes at old ladies or do something equally career-damaging.

So I made a habit of carrying Sean's address on me in case I was too tired or fucked up to remember it. He was used to it by now. He'd hear the taxi, come out of the house, give a wave to the driver and lug me inside.

That's how it started. Made sense, I guessed, to both of us. And when I sobered up I didn't remember the details of what I'd done, so if anything embarrassing happened I never had to face up to it. He spared me the worst moments, I'm sure.

Then there were those handful of times when we'd just gone too far. Drinking games were Billy's forte and mostly certainly not my own. Dom managed to crawl out with his ass still on, but I needed Sean to reattach mine before sweeping me off to safety.

And I'm not a sad drunk. I'm a giggly drunk, most of the time, depending on the liquor and the company. But there were a couple times within that handful of times that I started bawling on Sean's bathroom floor about life and love and the color of the sky and any manner of complaint I'd ever had.

Maybe it was because, deep down, I trusted him with my secrets in a way that I didn't trust the rest of the guys. Maybe it was because I didn't feel like I had to impress him with keeping a stiff upper lip. Maybe it was because I was just a little homesick and a little nervous and a little concerned that I couldn't succeed at what I'd come here to do.

He'd shove a hot towel into my hand, push the hair from my face like I was eight years old, and rub the back of my neck when the heaves came back up and brought me shuddering and coughing over the toilet.

When the bitter sting of bile was gone and I had no excuse to be blubbering like an idiot, I kept on crying anyway, and I told Sean everything. I told him about my family and my father. My father, who I didn't miss, who I didn't need, but who had fucked us over anyway, and that just wasn't fucking right, you know? 

And those couple girls that had just wanted to fuck me; didn't really want to work on the script, just wanted to say they'd had me. And those guys, those guys with their easy-open flies and pretty little mouths, saying things I had wanted to hear at the time. Was anyone fucking honest anymore?

And Sean listened, nodded, and murmured those tiny monosyllabic phrases that were all the comfort in the world to someone who was half-drunk and full of slopping, seasick emotions.

The soothing motion of his fingers under a towel meant nothing to him. Didn't matter that he only touched me when I was drunk, when he thought I wouldn't remember later. Didn't matter that there was something so tentative in the way his palms smoothed my cheeks dry just before he left the guest bedroom.

Didn't matter to anyone but me.

 

The Frodo part of my dream began to get longer. I had been reading the first book religiously, so it only made sense, but it was really creepy, especially since half the time I was Frodo but couldn't understand why he was doing whatever it was that he was doing.

The scene replayed itself and the crucial seconds that were added on with each updated version of the dream were elusive but important to me. Every time, I got closer to working my—Frodo's—way through the garden, which proved more treacherous than the garden in the books was.

The garden in my dream had winding paths far too long and large to be Bag End's gardens. There were dead ends and ivy and tangled thorns that blocked my progress. And yet wherever I was in the garden, there was that glowy light and the promise of something so stable and perfect and beautiful that I kept on walking. 

 

"I won't be home tonight, alright?"

"Alright."

"Going to pick up Chris and Ali at the airport."

I looked up at him. "Damn. I forgot about that."

We started filming in five days.

"You'll be alright?"

The initial bonding-drinking rush had settled peacefully and we weren't doing as much partying as we had. The real work was about to start. More time was spent reading, script memorizing, and resting rather than trying to see how much liquor our poor, shriveled livers could handle.

"Sure. I was just going to crash at Dom's," I lied.

He was leaving.

"You should take your stuff out of the bathroom, too, I guess."

He was smiling.

"Yeah. Yeah, you'll need the room."

Guess he will, then.

 

Christine asked me if I'd like to stay for dinner. Not that I had much choice in the matter—Ali had attached herself to my calf and wouldn't let go. She was the cutest little thing and there were times; certain expressions she had that were so identical to Sean's that it made me stop and stare.

I sat in the living room with her and she introduced me to her dolls one by one while dinner was being prepared. We chatted about Hobbits—I did most of the talking—and she was very excited about getting to be one. Her big eyes grew even wider at the idea and her waves of honey-colored hair bobbed enthusiastically.

Dom and Billy blustered in ten minutes before we all sat down. Billy smiled quite smoothly and slid a bottle of wine into Christine's hand with a wink. Dom looked at him and then swatted his shoulder and pointed to the dining room.

I grabbed Ali up by her knees and swung her over my shoulder, eliciting a squeal. "Look what I found!" I announced, circling the dining table. "She's a bit small but with some potatoes maybe..." She giggled a high-pitched giggle and squirmed. "What's that? You're not for dinner?" I set her down and looked over at Sean, grinning, only to find him giving me the strangest smile. 

The lights in the dining room were a sober golden yellow, glinting prettily off all the plates and glasses. Sean was wearing an olive green sweater with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, and the light behind him spilled a glow through his hair. 

Over my glass that was tipped to my lips, and with the tart berry of the wine teasing my tongue, my line of sight accommodated a vision of that light behind him. There was a rushing in my stomach. I put my glass down as a bowl of steaming something or other was passed to me and forced myself to look away from him.

The talk at the table was mostly about the filming and the script. Sean was saying that we wouldn't have the chance to get together this way that often, because of the demand of the filming schedule. We'd had plenty of time to look it over, but had been warned that there would be constant changes. 

Shifting locations and times of day when we'd be needed meant our trailers would become more familiar to us than our apartments and houses. Christine gave a soft, pouting look at Sean, all pretty playfulness, and he took her hand on the tabletop. I cleared my throat into my wineglass.

"I know, I know," she was saying. "We've talked it over plenty. Ali will just have to keep me busy." She grinned at Ali, who had twin cheeks full of mashed potato and was bouncing lightly in her seat. She looked so much like a chipmunk that I had to laugh.

Dom leaned over, poking Ali's cheek. She swallowed and then stuck her tongue out at him. He grinned. I shook my head at Billy, who was smirking at Dom affectionately.

Towards the end of the meal—and after so much strawberry ice cream that I thought my stomach would freeze over—Christine took Ali up to bed. Billy and Dom were just reaching tipsy and they leaned on each other while stumbling into the taxi Sean called for them.

Back inside with a cigarette in hand, I got comfortable. Christine's footsteps creaked on the wooden ceiling, giving domestic background music to the whole scene that was all at once alien and familiar to me. We sat there together in silence for a long time. I got through a cigarette and a half before Sean spoke.

"Should start going over the script together."

"I've been memorizing since day one, but sure. I was thinking," I exhaled twin lines of smoke from my nostrils, "that we should run some dialogue straight from the book. Sam and Frodo scenes, y'know. To get the feel." 

"Ali likes you," he said. I paused, ground out my cigarette into an ashtray, then sat back, nodding. "You sure you're going to be okay?" He sat forward. "You're still welcome to crash here, but...somehow I don't think you will, with Chris and the baby around."

"I wouldn't," I agreed, shrugging. "The shoot's about to start, man, don't worry. We won't have time to get messed up."

"That's not what—" Christine came up behind Sean's chair from the direction of the staircase. She put her hands on his shoulders and he smiled up at her, falling silent. She smiled at me.

"Want to stay over, Elijah? We've got plenty of room..."

I wondered how much Sean had told her about my sleeping over. Did he tell her anything at all? And if he had, was she ready to treat me the way he did to keep everyone happy? 

I stood, smiling at them both as I dropped a kiss on Christine's cheek and squeezed Sean's shoulder. "Dinner was lovely, Chris. But I should turn in early. Sean? Get some sleep. Thank you, guys."

Sean walked me to the door, watched me shrug my jacket on and untangle my ever-elusive jumble of keys. "Excited about tomorrow?"

I felt sort of hollow. But not about the filming.

"Frodo's ready to go," I said, smiling and standing on the balls of my feet. 

I wished he wouldn't watch me the way he did. There was something unnerving about his steady gaze that made me want to shut my eyes. And then there was that paternal look that I was getting at all the sudden.

"You worry too much!" I said in a jovial tone, tossing my arms around his neck and patting his back in a hug. "I'm fine. I'm great."

The single forearm he put around my back to steady me and the hot brand of his palm just above where the waistband of my jeans sat was more intimate than any embrace I'd ever gotten from him. He held me half against him. You couldn't even call it a hug, really.

"Alright, Hobbit. I believe you. Call me when you get in."

He let me go and I was immediately cold.

 

"I'mmm goin' to Bree, goin' to Bree, goin' to Bree." Sean looked at me and I stopped singing. "What? I am." I brushed some wig out of my eye and continued prancing around the road that was lined all along the opposite side with crew and cameras.

He went back to talking in a huddle with Dom and Billy. I made my way over, still humming the tune I'd made up to go with my song. 

"He's on his way out, I'm telling you," Dom said. "Heard from one of the prop guys that he and Peter had a serious row last night. Stormed out like a madman."

"Stuart?" I asked, poking my head into the conversation. There were nods all around.

"They ran some things, had the costume tweaked. But it just isn't switching on, you know. Least that's what I heard. Rumor says he's too dainty, too young, not...commanding enough."

"Bloody Irish," I offered decisively, which got a look from the three Hobbits. "Er...well. I dunno. Apparently I'm out of the loop. You'd think they'd keep their Ringbearer updated on these sorts of things."

A makeup person came over, scattered our little meeting and cornered me, dabbing and spritzing and arranging. Out of the corner of my eye I saw two crewmembers filling Dom and Billy's arms with vegetables. The ring was taken out from under my shirt and shined up.

I looked over at Sean, smiling to myself as his pack was straightened and the hair on his feet smoothed out. Sensing my eyes on him, he looked over and returned my smile. The minute he was ready he came over to me, nudging my side with his hip. I paused and then burst into song again. "Weeee'rrrree goin' to Bree goin' to Bree!"

He pointed his chin at me, smiled again in a way that made the blood tingle in my fingers, and hitched his pack as he made for his mark. "Stick to the script, Mister Frodo." It took several seconds for me to realize I was supposed to follow him.

 

In the dream, my mother cries. The sound is in the background, bodiless, without source. I'm not in the house and I'm not with her but I can hear her crying in the bedroom. The sound shifts to the absent hallway and into the absent bathroom, tracing invisible paths. 

I'm in the garden, standing in front of a tall hedge of green. Apparently I've been standing here for a while, because I'm—Frodo—is very frustrated and can't understand the hedge and its sudden appearance. Frodo hears the crying but isn't concerned with it. Because even though I'm in his body, we're not the same person, and it's my job to worry about my mother.

Stepping back from the wall, I close my hands over my ears, squinting. The hopeless feeling under my skin rises and then falls, sharp and then dull, bright and then dark. There is movement to my left—something or someone ducking just behind the cover of a bush. I hurry to follow and meet empty space.

There is a voice in my head suddenly, which quickly becomes the overlapping of several voices: my mother's, and then Sean's, and then Sam's: "Doodle?" The differences in timbre in each voice stretch them out unevenly so that I can hear each distinctive tone; my mother's clipped voice, Sean's slightly higher pitched man tone, and Sam's rough working-Hobbit accent. 

The word rips me from sleep and I'm awake in an ugly split-second, breathing harshly into the black ink of nighttime that fills my bedroom. My hand flies to my cell-phone and I hit a button. After five or six rings, I hear a soft, feminine voice answer.

"H-hello?" Christine says.

I disconnect the call. I close my eyes and sink back down to the sheets. 

I keep forgetting.

 

Being with him from sunrise to sunset changed things. But, no—that wasn't it exactly. Being his Frodo from the moment I woke up until the moment I slumped, exhausted, scrubbed, dressed hastily in street clothes, into a van on my way home...yeah, that was it. That really changed things.

Maybe it was the constant repetition of dialogue; dialogue between two characters that were closer than any other pair of characters in the entire film. It worked on my subconscious in the same way that the dreams did. So there was this whole silent bonding between us, layered on top of the actor-to-actor bonding we had when not in costume.

And I'd be lying if I didn't credit the third player: New Zealand, itself. It became Middle Earth for us all. Along with being Middle Earth, the freedom it offered was equally intoxicating. This shoot was college for an actor who grew up the way I had; for the first time I was handed my own house, my own money, and my own built-in family. I did what I wanted to do. 

There were deep moments—moments wide and black and bottomless with sucking vortexes of purpose that would grab at me, demanding my attention. You are here. You are Frodo. You are Mr. Wood now, and not Doodle. 

If it was possible to be scared shitless and excited beyond reason by these moments, then that's how I would describe them to you.

"It's...it's big, Sean. It's not just one of those pictures. There's no straight-to-video here, man. I'm Frodo fucking Baggins and I'm freaked out. They're either going to hate me or love me but it's going to be massive. I can't hide behind other actors or a bad plot line or horrible special effects this time," I would say to him, late at night when everyone was asleep and I could do nothing to stop myself from calling him, even though I knew how exhausted we both were.

"I'm having the greatest time of my life. I'm being force to...to see myself in ways that I never had to before. I've got you guys and all this crew sitting there just...watching me. I mean, all the goddamn time. It's unnerving but...is it totally selfish of me to say that I sort of like it?"

And on and on, rambling until my head was empty and his ear was no doubt burning. Of course there were long stretches of every-day bullshit between these late-night speeches of mine. There were weeks of planning what we'd do that weekend, trips to monuments, beaches, and interviews. 

But what made me and Sean's relationship different was those rambling moments. Those long evenings buried in rewrites, scripts, and worn copies of the books, somehow finding segue from chapter eight to what it was like to film Rudy and then back again to chapter nine.

When I recognized this sudden need of him, it made me pause. And then his response to that: he absorbed everything I was, filtered it, and gave it back to me, stripped of the mess. I began to worry. I shouldn't've needed him. I wasn't supposed to. I didn't need a father.

Keep telling yourself that's why, Elwood.

 

We did a lot of walking. From trailer to car, from drop-off point to set, from restaurant to parking lot, from driveway to door. It should've clued me in, all these tiny extensions of our time together that he insisted on. I was oblivious to anything but the reality that I liked it. That I wanted it to keep on going. That when we reached his door and he said goodnight I wanted to grab his arm and make him stay. At the same time I was unwilling to admit that I needed him. The idea of defining that need further wasn't even on the radar yet. 

He stood on my left as he had since the day we met and I wanted to ask him why he did that, in the same way that I wanted to ask a dozen questions about him that were too personal to ask. 

"You almost slipped. You were all..." He did a vague imitation, arms wind-milling.

"I did not," I shot back, laughing and digging my hands deeper into my pockets. "I artistically flailed."

He giggled and flashed me a look as we reached his car. "I have an excuse. I...am the chubby Hobbit. You? Shouldn't be flailing."

We had been at Manakau all day, filming the Brandywine crossing. Dom and Billy had managed to cut out early with a crewmember who offered them a ride.

I moved to get into the car, but he just turned and leaned against it, watching me. I put my weight on the passenger side door. "Dom's a brave soul, I'll tell you that."

Sean dissolved into laughter. "Oh, God, don't start. If you start we're never going to be able to drive—"

"It's gonna be feckin' huge, mate, I'm telling you, massive!"

"Elijah!"

I broke down in high-pitched squeaks, falling onto the pavement. "Billlllyyy!"

He hesitated and then just gave in, and flopping onto his knees and pawing my shoulders with a focused, crazed look in his eye. "Does it hurt verrah much? Hold still, Dommie."

Trying in vain not to giggle, I fell back, bringing his hands with me, making dramatically pained faces and finally falling still. He laughed as he hovered over me and put his face into my shirt, shoulders shaking.

"They'd kick our asses if they were here," I managed, when the laughter subsided.

"They'd kick your ass. I'm exempt." He sat up a little.

"Oh are you?" He made the Sam face at me. "...Yeah, you've got a point."

He sighed and looked around. "We're not normal at all."

I smiled and tucked up my knees, leaning them against his hip. "Nope."

"Man, it's late," he said, eyes on his watch as he sat down on the pavement next to where I lay flat on my back.

"Yeah." I shifted around, tapping my knee against his thigh steadily, eyes trained on the ink-and-diamond sky looming above us. "You gonna go home?" I wondered if he would spend his Sunday off in Wellington or visiting one of the places we'd talked about.

"I already told Chris we might not finish in time for the drive," he answered, fighting back a yawn.

"So we're taking them up on that hotel offer?" I thought of the little rubber band-wrapped packet of papers that would get us into a hotel on New Line's tab.

"Guess so. Better get moving. They'll be annoyed if we don't call in."

 

Later that night, I dreamed. It started out predictably: the stepping out of the front door at Bag End, the peering into the garden. There was the usual light and movement by the greenery, and then the one-sided pursuit through a winding maze of hedge.

A noised filled my head, rushed and painful, like plunging into free-fall too fast, pulling my weight against gravity. I stopped where I was, pressing palms to either side of my eyes, trying to balance myself.

Mommy, come on! Mommy...

I'll be out in a minute!

We were going to be late for the audition if she didn't hurry. And she always managed to look immaculate, with the dull beige makeup hiding nearly all of the darkness and red circles rimming her eyes. It only took a few years for that crying to stop; and those were years that weighed on me. For some reason it was my job to keep her going. Out of my two siblings, I had the career. I was her main concern.

The rushing went away gradually. I moved forward, hands rustling on the hedge at my sides—the sound far too magnified to be natural, scraping like dry leaves on concrete, deep and harsh in the bottom of my eardrum.

A smear of yellow, pink, and brown that came across like hazy light, and I was standing in the dining room at Sean's house, watching us all eat dinner. Everything trickled in slow motion; but it was more like being underwater. The sound was garbled and buried, the motion delayed.

Sean leaned over and kissed Christine with wine-reddened lips. Ali laughed—and the sound stretched, stretched, tinkled, like crystal on crystal—and Billy leaned over to say something in Dom's ear, but kissed the curve of that ear instead when no one was looking. I watched myself, but quickly lost interest. I looked at Sean, whose eyes wandered over me every time I turned to say something to Dom or Billy. 

Another rushing noise—and the golden light came again, flaring behind him, drawing my pupils to pinpoints. When I opened my eyes I was standing at another impasse in the garden. I felt exhausted suddenly. I'd missed something terribly important in all this. I sat down in the dirt and closed my eyes until the dream faded.

In the car the next morning, Sean told me I'd been making noises in my sleep. He said he hadn't wanted to wake me and made some joke about it probably having been a dirty dream.

I smirked and said something along the lines of "Just drive, Samwise," before sinking down into my seat and tipping my hat down over my face.

 

We got trapped at a Saturday evening script reading with Pete and Fran for hours longer than I expected. Usually I didn't mind that sort of thing, but my eyes had been burning and itchy all day. I couldn't get my contacts in without making it worse, so I had been wearing my glasses, and the pressure on my sinuses was giving me a headache.

Pete was going through some motions and lines over with Dom and Billy while Viggo and Sean Bean talked quietly together in the other corner. I rubbed the skin around my eyes, swiping away the moisture that kept welling up. It was more aggravating simply because of how tired I was.

By the time Pete was satisfied, I had nearly fallen asleep. Dom nudged me awake and tugged me up on one side and Sean took the other. Bean and Viggo cut out ahead of us and in the parking lot, Sean asked me if I wanted a ride.

"We were gonna go, uhm," Dom squinted as he stretched his arms. "To a pub or somethin'. You look like crap, though, man. Go home." Billy dangled his keys and spread an arm around Dom's shoulder. 

I pressed the heel of my palm to my eye, disturbing my glasses and nodding. "Yeah."

Sean's fingers wriggled into my jacket pocket before I could stop them and claimed my keys. "I'll drive. What's with your eyes?"

"Burn," I explained shortly as we got in the car and pulled out onto the road.

"Your place or mine? There should be something in the bathroom for your eyes."

"Mine. I'll be alright."

Ten minutes later, Sean was rifling through my medicine chest. I hopped up onto the sink and sat there, tapping a rhythm on the wooden cabinet with the heels of my sneakers.

He got out a small white bottle and something that looked like a shot glass. I raised an eyebrow. "Whiskey! Excellent!"

"No, not whiskey," he replied, chuckling and shaking his head. He reached up and gently slipped the eyeglasses from my face. I blinked as the bathroom went hazily out of focus.

"Eyedrops," he explained, holding up the bottle. "This is to flush your eyes clean," he went on, tapping the little misshapen shot glass.

"Can I see your credentials, please?"

"Tilt your head back, Hobbit."

"A second opinion, maybe." I grinned.

He filled the glass with water and then wrapped his fingers under my ear, cupping my head. Even with the burning in my eyes, I still had to fight off a physical reaction to the touch. Warmth stirred in my belly and I tried to think about other things besides the length of his fingers.

"Now keep your eye open," he instructed, and tipped the glass quickly over my eye socket. My fingers clenched and I forced my eyelids to stay open as he repeated the process on the other eye. Trickles of water streamed down the sides of my face. He dried that and then offered up the eyedrops, plinking three in each eye and then drying the excess again.

His hand was still there, cupping my head. "Long eyelashes," he chuckled, lightly shifting them. "Get in the way."

I had blushed—was still blushing—from the proximity of his body and the timbre of his voice and hoped he would ignore it and just let go. His palm burned with fresh heat as it touched my ear and jaw and the tips of his fingers shifting my eyelashes made the skin there tingle. God, Sean, stop. You can't possibly comprehend, man.

"That better?"

It took me longer than it should have to remember what the fuck he was talking about. Oh, right. There had been a point to this bathroom soirée ten minutes ago. "Yeah, actually. Thanks."

He slid away from me, smiling. "If it's still bothering you tomorrow, I'll get Pete to send someone over to take a look." He dried his hands on a towel. "I've got to get home."

Stay, please—. I hopped off the sink and slid my glasses back on. "We can use my car."

He argued that he didn't want me driving but I insisted and for once, he gave in. As we got in the car, he smirked at me. "I like the glasses, by the way. They make you look older."

And my stomach—which was very specifically not supposed to turn flips in response—did just that. 

After the ride we sat in his driveway and talked about our day off. I said I'd come up with a new place for us to visit and he agreed to let me pick.

As he was getting out of the car, he lightly pat my leg and let his hand rest heavily over my knee before pulling away. "If your eyes bother you, pull over and call me."

"It's a ten minutes drive, Seanwise. I'll be fine."

He turned and walked backwards towards the house. "If I had a penny for every time you told me that—"

"—you'd be even richer than you are now," I finished lamely, throwing the car into reverse and grinning at him. I watched him go inside. His absence left a void, and that space was quickly filled up with serious thought. I sat there, mulling over how crazy it was getting. Thinking about how dangerous it was to feel the way I was feeling.

There was no answer from above. No sign that the universe had been listening to my comparatively tiny emotions. There was no lightning bolt or sudden violin chord or clanging of bells. The car continued to idle and the neighborhood continued to be silent. 

I think that was the scariest part: the fact that it simply was. The fact that I had never been given the option to turn it off or say no. How it was calming and exciting and stomach churning all at once. Dormant emotion finally woken and coerced to grow.

This is going to be very, very bad.

 

"Kaitoke Regional Park," Sean read off the brochure. "This sounds really familiar."

"That's because New Line's shooting there," I said, taking a right down the long dirt road labeled on our map.

He went still. "We're going hiking in a place that we'll be paid to hike through later?"

"Where's your sense of adventure?"

"In my other pants' pocket, maybe?"

I smirked at him and shoved the massively wrinkled map onto his lap. "Map." 

He checked our route. "Where are the guys, anyway?"

The truth? Nah. I couldn't very well tell Sean that I had suggested the boys stay in and run lines and do laundry because I was going to do the same. And besides, it's not like I was planning to jump him or anything. I just—well, okay. It wasn't a very nice thing to do. 

"They weren't up to hiking," I answered.

Besides giving directions back and forth, we didn't talk much for the rest of the drive; would've been shorter if we hadn't got lost twice, but no harm done. It was true what the brochure said about it being so close to Wellington and yet nothing at all like it. The park was nearly jungle in some places; massive miles of fern and river giving it a green, rainforest smell.

Armed with backpacks, hiking boots, and walking sticks, we set out on one of the pre-marked trails that wound its way lazily past the two main river branches and a dense mile or two of trees. 

As much as we joked about the hiking, there was a huge difference between doing it in front of the cameras and doing it for fun. There was a leisurely, taking-it-all-in aspect to doing it because we wanted to.

"We crossing that?" Sean asked as we approached a very small waterfall—the river tumbled white and frothy over a cutoff of wood to continue noisily below. We were on level with the wood-and-rock dotted spot where the water began to fall over the break.

Trees flanked the water on either side. The mid-morning sun slanted in over the branches, casting spectacular glitter off the surface of the clear water as the two met. I put a hand over my forehead to block the glare, my eyes on Sean's khaki pants when I turned to look at him.

"Yeah," I said, making a sudden decision. I placed a booted foot firmly on one of the flat stones just off the bank.

"Hey, be careful," he said, stepping forward and grabbing my sweatshirt sleeve-covered wrist. I stepped forward and his grip slid lower, lightly claiming my palm. I wrapped my fingers around his hand and together we navigated the slippery rock path to the opposite bank.

Safe on dry land and with pants wet to mid-calf, we shared a tiny smile, and for some insane reason didn't let go out each other's hands. It was like a riff in space-time; like the second of life that was supposed to carry the action of us separating our hands was sucked out of the fabric of things. A moment missed and an option discarded—and who was I to complain?

There was no romantic tangle of fingers. We just let our palms sit together, fingers wrapped around the backs of each other's hands. His skin was damp, or maybe that was mine, and Reality tapped me on the shoulder and nodded its chin (you realize you're holding his hand) and I rolled my eyes back at Reality (shhhhh). 

The path we took was nicely worn and completely deserted. We talked quietly through the walk, keeping each other upright over tree roots and leaf-littered rocks, pointing out this and that bit of clearing and stopping every now and then to snap a photo.

Climbing sunlight thawed the crisp morning in a subtle way, and our locked hands burned with a combination of body and Nature's warmth. How must we have looked to the faceless, imaginary passersby, two men holding hands—would he have let me do this if there were other people here?—and talking about children and life, directing and acting.

We walked steadily the rest of the morning, letting go of our clasped hands and then picking up the gesture again randomly. A clearing led us to an open field dotted with trees, and under one of those trees we stopped and spread our things. Letting go of his grip was casual, simply because we'd been holding hands so long that any embarrassment over it was gone.

I broke out the sandwiches and bags of chips that I'd packed that morning and we split up the fare under the noonday sun. I said something about feeling like a Hobbit: sharing luncheon under the shade of a tree in the middle of nowhere.

"Don't think the Hobbits would approve of our footwear, though," he said doubtfully around a mouthful of turkey, tapping his booted toes together.

"Nah, probably not." I lay down on my belly, nibbling a pickle slice. He watched me intently. Strange to feel the cliche of eyes on you, but I could, there on my back and my sneakers and especially near my face. Moments passed before I picked up a vein of conversation we'd struck earlier. "What was it like, being in the hospital room when Ali was born?"

He smiled, took a breath, and set down his can of diet Coke. "Scary as hell. It's true, what they say about watching a child be born. The first thing, you know, that you only really appreciate your mother when you've watched a woman give birth. The second? Makes you glad to be a guy."

I laughed, shifting closer on my stomach with my elbows, propping my chin on an upturned palm. "You passed out, didn't you."

"Hey!" He grinned. "I never said that. But, man, the screaming. Like I said, makes you see your mom in a whole new way. There were moments during those hours when...well, it seemed amazing. That it was happening. That at the end, you'd have another human being in the world."

"Was it long?"

"Not dangerously so, no. I mean...there's a point that you can hit where the doctors start to get anxious. But we didn't get there, nah. She was a little small, but besides that, healthy. Sort of like a purple, wrinkly raisin at first, but they told me that was natural."

I laughed again and reached out, pushing at his knee. "That's awesome. Really. You're a great dad, Sean. The guys won't say it ever, but they've said it to me. You don't let the Hollywood bullshit affect your life, you know?"

His cheeks reddened and he shrugged, poking my fingers flat on his knee, arranging their tips. "I try." He pressed the pads of his fingers over my nails, touching the blunt edges as if he'd just discovered them. "You're running out of nail to chew, Hobbit."

I smirked. "Yeah, I know." I shifted my fingers out of the way and looked at his; they were smooth and carefully cut to leave the slightest rim of white. There was a bit of irritation from the constant application and subsequent scrubbing off of stage dirt and grime, though. "Yours'll look like Sam's by the time we wrap."

He smiled; a soft sort of smile that reminded me of Sam's, and in his eyes there was some of that moonstruck gaze that teased Sam's expression when he looked at Frodo from time to time. I wondered what exactly that said about the whole story. I wondered how much of it was for Frodo and how much, if any, was for me.

He sprawled back on the grass, squinting away from a bit of sunlight that took advantage of a gap in the leaves, and found a less bright spot. I itched to be next to him. I sat up and resettled perpendicular to his body, laying my head on his soft belly. His body relaxed under me and I listened to his lungs fill and empty; steady and reliable, that noise, just like its owner. 

"Your eyes bother you since last night?"

I had said eyes closed. "Nope. I think it was the contacts. Threw 'em away and put in a new pair and I've been cool."

A breeze kicked up, warm and full of sunlight's breath, sending the tall grass and trees into a whispered frenzy. A rustle of birds sounded somewhere to the east of us. Noon passed in this fashion, quiet and ordinary, like we had always been.

The universe was once again silent. It was no surprise. And there was a strange comfort in that, even though a piece of me was convinced there shouldn't be comfort in any part of it. 

This shouldn't be easy. This shouldn't be right. 

But when you're alone, there's no one to agree with you about that. No one to keep you on the straight and narrow, so to speak. No one to take you away from the comforting rhythm of his heartbeat and the warmth in his blood or to deny you the light invasion of his fingertips that skip over your hair to shoo away a bug.

Somewhere deep down the truth spiraled, offering up a plain explanation of what was happening, and it made sense that it had to be mutual, but only because I wanted it to be. Because it cracked sharply with an anguished sharing that only the two of us could have been aware of. But mostly because I wanted it.

Amazing that it overlapped that way: desperate reality and juicy wanting all mish-mashed and indecisive—the hasty marriage of childish impulse and adult desire. 

It's poetry, I guess. Poetry on my insides; and he doesn't even know he's writing it.

 

I passed the bottle of bleach to Christine and she chattered on about Ali and the little girl's impression of New Zealand life. "It's not the way I thought it was going to be." She fiddled with the measuring cap. "The crew is like family to her. She's got dozens of Kiwi aunts and uncles now. And running around with all the other little Hobbit kids..." Her nose crinkled cutely and she smiled, dumping the bleach in and closing the washer top. 

I followed her into the kitchen as she swiped her palms on her jeans and went for the refrigerator. There was a dynamic to the way she moved, effortlessly preparing lunch for the two of us while continually talking. 

"I told him to go," she was saying, "and I wouldn't take no for an answer. I mean, it was a shock, honestly, it couldn't not be, but such a big thing. And of course I said we'd come. I mean, we had to. We were worried about Ali at first but my goodness just look at this place." She slipped a plate of pasta under my nose.

"How've you been? You know. With him being away so much." I shoveled some food into my mouth, lightly swinging my sneakers against the legs of the stool under me.

She sat down across from me with her own plate and a wine glass, arms flat on the table and a smile touching her lips. "He's working. It's no different than being in California, really." Her shoulders sunk a little. "Well..."

I shifted pasta around my plate. "Yeah?"

She hesitated, peeking at her plate. "Sean's mom called the other day. She calls every few days. Won't let us tell her a thing about the movie," she laughed, "but asks about the baby and Sean and the boys all the time, you know. She asked me how I was holding up, not having friends down here really, not like at home, anyway." I nodded. "And I sort of...paused. Because when I think about it, things have changed." She sighed. "I'm probably just being paranoid. This is a very involved project, just like he said."

"But if...if you're not okay, you should say something, right?" I suggested, trying very hard to deny the way my heart thumped double-time in response to that.

"I shouldn't be making you have this conversation," she said, her cheeks pink and a nervous laugh in her throat. 

"Hey. If you need to talk, I can listen, Chris." I put my fork down and tried to look her in the eye. 

"He's so...quiet, now," she commented, wrinkling her face in a casual, light-hearted way, the pink becoming red over her nose and cheeks. "I try to keep him talking about the company back in LA. What we'll do afterwards, you know. Maybe even...try for a second baby. The sort of things we used to talk about all the time before." She shrugged. "Even when there's breaks and he's rested, he's distracted and I—well, I don't know. It's weird."

That registered a big old blank on my radar. I had no idea what to say to her. So I filled my mouth with pasta and then wiped my hands on a napkin, sitting back on the stool. "So what do you think is wrong?" 

Her chest swelled with breath. "Not sure," she said, exhaling. "It's..." she paused, tapping the tongs of her fork into the same piece of rigatoni over and over. "We've never been in this kind of situation in our life together. I guess in the back of my mind I worry that Sean will...want freedom again. Or at least want things to be the way they were in college. Is this making any sense?" She chuckled.

"Absolutely," I said, even though I was only slightly sure. "It makes sense."

"Well?" she tacked on, sitting up and looking at me expectantly. "You two are so close. Has he said anything?"

It just dawned on me that she might want my input. I opened my mouth, then smiled. 

"No. Nothing." 

Chewing, she smiled back at me. "I'm not saying you need to be a go-between at all. I was just curious. Sean's a good man." She sighed, but it was a positive sound this time. "He's crazy about you, you know." My stomach skittered, chased its tail. "He goes on and on. How talented you are; how successful you're going to be. You scare him sometimes in rehearsal, he says, you get so into it." She was laughing by now, reaching across the countertop to lightly touch my hands as she spoke.

I laughed. "Hey, he's pretty intense, too. He shouldn't put it all on me."

The front door opened and we looked over as Sean hustled in, Ali dangling over his shoulder like a burlap sack. He was grinning and exuberant as he made plane noises through his lips and swooped her down to her feet. My eyes were on him even as my attention went to Ali, who tugged my sleeve to show me the bits of glue still stuck around her ears.

"We were just talking about you," Christine said playfully.

"Oh really? She was very good today. Tell Mommy how good you were," Sean insisted, pushing up the sleeves of his sweatshirt as he hovered behind Christine's chair, hands on her shoulders.

As Ali rushed into Christine's arms I smiled at Sean. "That wasn't long."

"Nah, they didn't want to keep her long. But she's doing great," he said, still grinning.

We finished lunch together. I couldn't keep my eyes off Sean; and I knew it had everything to do with the doubt in Christine's voice. It was painful because I knew what she was thinking and I knew what I was thinking, and I was supposed to be guilty about that, right? On the surface, sure, I cringed. But deep down? I was excited. Selfishly, stupidly excited over something that was the sum total of my own thoughts. Maybe I let myself feel it because I was convinced of that; convinced that it was just me, that there was no harm in it for anyone but myself because it wasn't real.

 

Pockets of heat began to singe themselves into the fabric of my dreams. Beyond the strings of conversation with my mother, beyond the replay of Sean and his family, beyond Frodo and the garden, these short flickers of warmth were born. They dotted the running movie inside my skull; delayed my attention. They felt like that bottomless moment when you wake up all at once just before sleep and you think you're falling; your body is sure of it for that second or two, you feel the reflexive jerk of your limbs as they move to break the inevitable fall.

Inside that heat there was a mess of hands and limbs and pressure against my body. It'd been a while since I had been that close with someone and it was strange in the dreams, as if I'd never done it before at all. I was stuck in that spot, helpless, entirely in the hands of the person doing the touching. The feeling kind of humbled me; it was a lesson in patience, I guess. I fucking hated lessons in patience.

And it lost its edge of fantasy when I woke up; sweat broken out on my upper lip, pulse doing the Mambo under my ears and on the inside of my wrists, cock hard as steel, nudging open the slit of my boxers. Fell back onto the sheets, squeezed a hand over myself and rolled over, arching hard into the mattress, groaning. 

Later I'd stare at Sean as we worked; allowing myself to use the moments between takes to watch the way he moved; so graceful despite the extra weight. Such a spark in those eyes, a spark—of what? I didn't know. Life. Warmth. Vibrance. 

And a feeling that I was missing something that he had—that he had arrived at a place where I couldn't get. And I wanted that from him; that whatever it was, that thing that made him man and—the same thing that's absence left me feeling boy.

So whether it was Sean in my dreams originally or Sean in my dreams once I'd realized I wanted that faceless partner to be him, I don't know. Couldn't fucking remember in the mess of it. 

Hours later the weight fell off the thought; I felt stupid about even thinking that crazy theoretical garbage and I had a good laugh over it. Go out with the boys, get good and sloshed, and forget the tiny roller coaster of the last few days. You fucking crazy, man? Get over it, yeah? You're filming a bloody movie, not a soap opera. Do your goddamned job.

And then I wondered when in the hell I'd started thinking in a British accent and I told Dom so, and Dom laughed and slapped me on the back and slid a shot of spiced rum under my nose. The next hour was wasted on drunken philosophical dialogue on the topic of how gay looking the little pirate on the spiced rum bottle was.

"And a fine hour it's been, Mister W-w-wood," Dom coughed, swaying on a double-step into my side and nearly knocking me over. "I have a—" Billy collided with my other side, squishing me between them, "—vision! Next movie. All us guys, yeah? Pirates. Nancy, rum-drinking pryrats..." 

"The fook's a pryrat?" Billy leaned around me, swatting Dom's head. I giggled, trying to duck, but quickly got caught in a back and forth smacking session in which I absorbed a good portion of the slaps.

The three-legged stumble that we had going broke up in front of the taxi. In the backseat, I somehow ended up between Dom and Billy again, and hovered between nausea from too much rum and arousal as they openly kissed across my lap, their fingers falling hard and unsteady on my thighs to stay upright.

Laughing drunkenly, Billy's hand slipped between my thighs and he grinned, falling onto me and kissing my neck sloppily. "Mmm," he hummed, and I felt Dom's mouth on my ear. I made some warning noise, squirming upward in place and giggling. "Guys..." Billy's fingers closed around what was currently holding half the blood content of my body in a rigid fashion and I squeaked, writhing away. "Guys..."

"Now that's not Dom's," Billy giggled, stopping suddenly. Dom's hand did a quick check and I wriggled again.

"Not at all," Dom said, laughing and laying on my side. 

In sixty seconds flat they were both asleep and snoring, weighing down each of my shoulders. I relaxed in the darkness of the taxi as the streetlights crawled over us and the driver sneaked us strange looks through the rear view mirror.

 

We shouldn't brush; but we do. 

The morning after the taxi incident he dragged me out of bed and asked me why I was still wearing my clothes. I muttered something about Dom and Billy and a pub and he smirked and began unbuttoning my shirt. I hazily focused my vision on his roaming hands; shuddered from the way the action mirrored my dreams, and wobbled backwards. He used my shirt to tug me upright and finished undoing the buttons, all business, before tugging my hands out of the sleeves. 

"I'm fucking fine." I felt like an eight-year-old; and didn't like the feeling. I pushed him away just a little and put a hand to my squinted eyes. He watched me with a blank expression.

A half-hour and one shower later, I was in front of him apologizing for being a prick. He nodded and brushed it off, telling me it was okay. I wished for once he'd be irrational and get angry with me—that would be passionate, that reaction; it would be something I could get worked up about. He always had to be so goddamned calm and collected. And then I wondered why the fuck I was irritated. He was being helpful and I was criticizing it every step of the way.

"I'm taking Christine to South Island tonight. We're going to sightsee tomorrow."

I stared at him for as long as convention allowed and then nodded, trying to ignore the burn that turned to ash in my mouth. "Have a good time."

I pretended it was normal when he curled his fingertips around my ear, pushing my hair back—fantasized that I could hear the hair bristle against his fingertips, that it was all happening in slow motion.

"Be good, Hobbit."

"You know me."

"Exactly."

 

The night Sean and Christine got back, Dom announced we were going to hijack him and drag him out with us. 

"He's had way too much girly time. He needs his mates, man," Orli agreed.

I bounced around Billy's place while we waited for Dom to come back from getting gas; couldn't wait to see Sean. I'd missed him and his voice and his constant phone calls. The last two days just hadn't been the same.

We took two cars and rushed the house Fellowship style—knocked once at the front door and then stepped inside without waiting for an answer. Christine, at the top of the stairs, giggled at us as we sneaked mock-stealthily towards the center of the house. "I told him," she said, and then disappeared into the hall.

"Smart woman," Dom remarked cheekily as we gathered around the divide between the living room and the hall. As a group we leaned in, heads appearing from behind the wall. Sean was sitting on the couch with a book in hand, back to us. We swayed into the room silently.

"You know. It's a good thing Frodo and Sam went to Mordor alone. The quest would've been over pretty quick if the other half of the Fellowship went," he said, not missing a beat.

We all froze, defeated, and then stomped noisily over to the couch, sliding into various places on it. Dom leaned over and nuzzled his nose into Sean's shoulder. "We missed you, too, friend."

I snickered and slid down from the arm of the couch to a cushion and then fell forward, laying myself over Sean's lap. I stole the book from his hands and closed it. He smiled at me and ruffled my hair, eyes flickering over my face. 

Billy got down from the back of the couch and slid his hands into his pockets. "We're gonna go get some dinner. You're comin' with us."

Sean didn't protest. The silly smile on his face made a silly smile on mine; and when it came right down to it, that was the feeling I'd missed the most. I tagged along behind him up the stairs while the rest of the group went out to the cars.

I wandered around he and Christine's bedroom while he changed, eyeing the personal effects as if they were clues to the secret husband-and-wife things that went on there. There was a lingering scent of her perfume in the air and framed pictures on all the countertops. I smiled at what looked like a very young picture of Christine and Sean; drew a fingertip along his side of the picture, smile fading a bit.

He was rambling on about South Island, about the beaches. I should have paid attention; we would be filming there eventually. He walked out of the bathroom wearing only pants and socks and kept talking as he rummaged through the closet. 

A flush twitched through my body immediately; petered out with a vengeance, drawing up the hairs on the back of my neck. I stared at the broad curve of his back and shoulders in the lamplight, encouraging the flush to come over me again. There was a pattern of brown freckles sprayed across his shoulders.

He flicked a black dress shirt around those shoulders, tugged it into place, and turned around. The flare of hair across his front ran neatly down into the waistband of his pants; and there my eyes stopped. I forced myself to look up and occupy myself with ogling the various items around the room.

"So what's this place?" he asked, buttoning up the shirt—no, don't bother, really—and I shrugged. He ran a comb through his hair and put on some cologne—oh, fuck, yes, that's the smell—and turned towards me again. My left hand crept along a discarded t-shirt strung over the dresser. "Hey."

"Mm?"

"You with me?" He wandered over and tugged my sleeve, smiling. I nodded and he gave me a look before glancing towards the bathroom. "Oh, shit. Forgot my wallet." He slipped away a second later. I quickly balled up the shirt and tucked it inside my jacket.

 

The restaurant had outdoor seating. So I found myself under the pitch-black New Zealand nighttime sky with a plate full of steak, a belly full of beer, sitting in Sean's lap. I can't remember how I got there, only that it had happened after Billy told some joke about me being Sean's charge and how he had to watch over me even when I ate, lest I injure my delicate fingers and girly wrists. ("Girly wrists?") His left arm was loosely draped around my waist and he ate with his right, occasionally squeezing a hand up to grip his knife. Glass after glass of red wine disappeared. 

There was something deliciously liberating about the night air crisp and sharp, flicking its wings and tail around glasses, plates, and bottles—teasing our attention skyward. I felt stupid and numb around the brain from too much wine. I felt mature and not boyish. I felt in charge of my destiny—as if it were possible for me to reach out and grab those crystal flecked stars and tell them where and when to align themselves. I felt equal with Sean for that fleeting moment; as if I could sit him down and say, "Now look here, brother, I need you. So why don't you just lay back and let me show you what I've been wanting?" and because we were equals, he'd respect my advances for what they were, and let me prove myself, even if afterwards we would never be able to do it again.

Something very important about Sean's personality that I'd gleaned; he was not quick to judge or reject. I could use that, I thought. I could overwhelm that... I could—

"I won't answer that," Sean was saying, pointing a finger in Dom's direction. "Nope. I refuse. Invasion of privacy, my friend."

"Bollocks!" Dom shot back. "'S'healthy sharing among friends and all that. C'mon, then. You're just shy. The wife's not in earshot. Let's hear it."

"He was shagging like a bunny backstage during rehearsal," Billy snickered, and a laugh tittered through the table.

"Flashing those pecs at all the audition heads, no doubt," Orli tacked on, lewdly wriggling his torso above the tablecloth.

Sean sat in feigned stunned silence, mouth agape. "This is beautiful. Really. The judgement is just...beautiful."

I paused for comedic effect and turned in his lap. "I believe you."

"He doesn't."

"He so does not."

The table dissolved into laughter. Shoulders shaking, I slumped into Sean's chest and he wrapped his arms around me. Several catcalls came from Dom and Orli. 

"Someone's jealous," Sean said, grinning at Dom. 

Dom dropped his jaw and put a hand to his chest, that insane grin he was so famous for curling his entire face. Sean nodded as if to say yes, you. Dom stood up abruptly, nearly upsetting the table, and charged around to our side, jabbing a finger into my chest.

"Stand to defend your honor, harlot," he said, giggling.

I grinned and flew off Sean's lap, charging Dom's space. Dom made a fist, but then stopped dramatically and grabbed my shoulders, spinning me smoothly around and wrapping one arm thoughtfully around my chest. "Or maybe," he said, catching the stares of our group, "Sean is into sharing..."

Louder oooh noises and riffs of laughter. Sean's eyebrows went up; there was a red flush over his cheeks and he looked thoroughly amused. The joke spiraled with Dom pointing out my many admirable physical traits but shaking his head at my "tiny" legs and my "pre-pubescent" stomach. Sean played along, agreeing or disagreeing with thorough comments, and the rest of the table chimed in to rate me. 

And later when we got into the car together I wrapped my arms around his elbow and grinned. "Are my legs really that skinny?"

He laughed and shook his head. "No, Lighe."

 

Before I went to bed that night I retrieved Sean's shirt from where I'd hastily stashed it—the glove compartment of my car. I carried it through the house and set it aside only for the sake of showering. I brought it to bed with me afterwards and lay there in the dark with it wrapped around my fist.

Why had I taken it? So fucking pointless. A split-second decision that hadn't been a decision at all. I tried not to feel stupid as I brought the cotton to my nose and inhaled deeply. Warmth flooded my face. It was a combination of Old Spice, cologne, and skin that I clung to. His smell, yeah—all it lacked was the warmth of his body behind it.

Flickerstab: in my dreams I was pinned on my stomach by a delicious weight and full to the point of pain, the kind that came just at the beginning and then at the end of the thrust, while the middle brought a rush of internal heat that was almost liquid. The feeling was very nearly uncomfortable; but when you stopped thinking about it, when you let go of it and just let yourself feel, all the distractions fell away and then it was so fucking good. A rush of blood and heat crackled around the edges of my perception, leaving me dry.

I opened my eyes and smoothed the shirt, laying it over my chest. Before I could even make fun of myself for it—you are not going to, Elijah Wood, don't you even—I was touching my cock and the shirt was around my fingers. Sean's scent clung, elusive and then strong, and my hand clung, rubbing and then squeezing. I let my dream images carry me through, which was strange; my fantasies rarely had names or faces.

My body heat climbed alongside the speed of my jerking; the bed creaked as I piston-rocked myself into the tube of my fist, silent besides a hitch in my breathing every few minutes. I refused to say his name, but it was there, forming itself silently on my lips, and it felt alien and heavy, because I was making myself say it, because I wanted to know what it would feel like. Please, touch me, harder, right there, oh God, and please stay...

A sound constricted in my throat and I let it go—nothing more than a whimper—and I was coming, rushed and harsh. I panted, still for several seconds, but when I finally looked down I saw the shirt twined in my fist and that I'd come all over it. A cold claw splayed its digits deep in the pit of my stomach. The feeling spoke to me of how sick it was, how alone I was, and how stupid it was of me to think that any part of this was going to be easy.

Bottom line: I was way out of my league.

 

Later that month I found myself on Sean's doorstep, rocking back and forth on my heels, waiting for someone to answer my knocking. Impatient, I moved around the walkway and finally up through the verge under the front windows. I peered in and saw Sean and Christine. They were sitting on kitchen chairs, knee-to-knee, talking in rapid voices and looking all too serious. 

I figured I could do the polite thing and just leave. Or maybe Sean would want me to do the best friend thing and knock louder to interrupt and get him out of it—sure didn't look like a happy conversation from where I stood. Yeah, I was just going to be nosy, then, wasn't I? So I knocked louder and waited. A full minute passed before Sean appeared, tight-lipped and breathing off rhythm. 

"Hey." He exhaled loudly and forced a smile. "What's up?"

I leaned forward, looking into the house. "Nothing. On my way home. Figured there was still plenty of daylight left to annoy you by."

"The usual, then," he said, smiling.

Drag him away or worm my way in? I didn't feel like leaving but weeks of convincing myself to reign in my attraction to him had left me feeling smarter about the whole thing. I had managed to get through the hugging, the extended cuddle sessions, his hands in my hair and my hands, his mouth close to touching certain parts of my exposed neck or arms, and a dozen other tiny, innocent physical interactions that taken as a whole seemed a lot worse. 

"I'm gonna, ah, get my jacket." He took a step back inside. "We could hit the Playstation or something. Want to?"

I nodded. "Cool!" 

 

"It's...well, it's happened a few times. Not many." His Playstation controller sat on his chest. "I never know what to say."

"But what's it about? Anything specific?" I peered over at him, fiddling with the buttons on mine and trying very hard to look innocent. "Can't just be random shit."

He thought about it. "Nah. It's the strain of it. I guess. Being apart, living with a whole new set of people. New demands. You know how it is."

I shrugged. To a certain extent, sure. "Yeah."

"And it's never full frontal raised voices fighting, you know? It's always this hushed kind of...thing. Worse than yelling."

On the topic of sharing: I was over my long-standing temptation to tell him about the dreams. Ever since they'd taken a turn towards the sexual, the other parts didn't progress. I—Frodo—was forever sitting in front of that wall of hedge. Sean and his family looped in the same patterns. My mother kept crying. It would be over in a second, those revisited scenes, and then the dream would blunder on to the sexual parts, which kept getting longer and more vivid.

I silently insisted to myself that through these dreams I'd become aware of the way his mouth and body would feel—and that it was dumb to encourage the fantasy. He had said something.

"Want to stay over tonight? Give you both some time."

He hesitated. "I should call her."

"Yeah. Alright." 

I stuffed a pillow under my elbows and switched the game back on as he stepped over me to use his cell-phone in the privacy of the hall. I purposefully ignored the conversation by playing the game but wasn't paying much attention to what I was doing either.

He came back into the room and stepped over each pillow carefully before sinking to his knees beside me and then lower, laying his head at the small of my back. He sighed and his cheek burned through to my skin hotly. "She said it'd be a good idea."

"I know I'm boring but fuck, Sean. Don't sound too excited."

He turned his face into my shirt and gave a long exhale. I shuddered and the burning doubled and played with the heat that rose from my skin. I paused the game; hoped he would stop; wished he would go farther. Then it looped back around to reality, to a place where nothing at all had to or must happen. 

I was just a guy with a craving that leaned dangerously over the edge of the windowsill it sat on, constantly teasing itself with thoughts of what falling right off and straight down might feel like. 

 

"Well, Sam!" I read from page ninety-seven, my voice higher and lilting with the half-British Frodo accent. "What about it? I am leaving the Shire as soon as ever I can—in fact I have made up my mind now not even to wait a day at Crickhollow, if it can be helped."

"Very good, sir!" Sean shot back, his whole face changing with the eager and loving Sam expression. 

"You still mean to come with me?" I added in the questioning look that the book's description didn't provide.

"I do," Sean said, and his eyes glazed over.

"It is going to be very dangerous, Sam," I said, staring at his eyes before looking back at the book. "It is already dangerous. Most likely neither of us will come back."

"If you don't come back, sir, then I shan't, that's certain," he read. I imagined this part impassioned and stalwart...a servant declaring his dedication. But Sean was reading it softly—and yes, there was passion, but it was the secretive kind. "Don't you leave him! they said to me. Leave him! I said. I never mean to." He smiled. "I am going with him, if he climbs to the Moon, and if any of those Black Riders try to stop him, they'll have Sam Gamgee to reckon with, I said. They laughed."

We were lying on our bellies on a pile of pillows, heads nearly touching over the books in our hands. I skimmed through all the post-its he'd so dutifully plotted for me and pointed. "Ooh, that's a good one. Page four-fifty-three. Sam, at the bottom."

"Where? Oh, there." He paused. "Begging your pardon," he read. "I don't think you understand my master at all. He isn't hesitating about which way to go. Of course not! What's the good of Minas Tirith anyway? To him, I mean, begging your pardon, Master Boromir. Now where's he got to? He's been a bit queer lately, to my mind. But anyway he's not in this business. He's off to his home, as he always said; and no blame to him. But Mr. Frodo, he knows he's got to find the Cracks of Doom, if he can. But he's afraid."

I watched his face change; tried to appreciate the skill and the love there. But I was stuck, finally, with my eyes glued to his mouth. My breathing bottomed out. I let myself become transfixed by how close we were and how easy it would be.

"Now it's come to the point, he's just plain terrified. That's what his trouble is. Of course he's had a bit of schooling, so to speak—we all have—since we left home, or he'd be so terrified he'd just fling the Ring in the River and bolt. But he's still too frightened to start. And he isn't worrying about us either; whether we'll go along with him or no. He knows we mean to. That's another thing that's bothering him. If he screws himself up to go, he'll want to go alone. Mark my words! We're going to have trouble when he comes back. For he'll screw himself up all right, as sure as his name's Baggins."

He stopped and coughed, then laughed, lifting his head and looking at me. "I think that's one of Sam's longest speeches. Damn. Kind of glad that didn't make it to script." He caught me looking at him. "Has my masterful reading of Tolkien left you mute?"

"What about the boat scene?" I smiled and turned the page; knowing full well what I could do with my eyes and tone of voice when I wanted, knowing that I had just done it and that his cheeks were suddenly pink.

"After the near-drowning or before?"

"After."

"Oh, Mr. Frodo, that's hard! That's hard, trying to go without me and all. If I hadn't a guessed right, where would you be now?"

"Safely on my way."

"Safely! All alone and without me to help you? I couldn't have a borne it, it'd have been the death of me."

"It would be the death of you to come with me, Sam, and I could have not borne that."

"Not as certain as being left behind." He stared up at me again, lightly touching my cheek with his free hand.

"But I am going to Mordor." My accent slipped a little.

"I know that well enough, Mr. Frodo. Of course you are. And I'm going with you."

"Now, Sam," I breathed, and my cheeks were hot. "Don't hinder me! The others will be coming back at any minute. If they catch me here, I shall have to argue and explain, and I shall never have the heart or the chance to set off. But I must go at once. It's the only way."

He smiled, broke character to chuckle, and rested his fingers on my neck as he read ahead. "Last two lines."

"So all my plan is spoilt!" I read. "It is no good trying to escape you. But I'm glad, Sam. I cannot tell you how glad." I let the love flood my throat. "Come along! It is plain that we were meant to—" be, I thought "—go together. We will go, and may the others find a safe road. Strider will look after them. I don't suppose we shall see them again."

His fingers lightly touched my cheek again, and he wasn't looking at the book. "Yet we may, Mr. Frodo. We may..."

Blood rushed around the ugly swollen thump of my pulse in my ears as I realized how close we were. The dim lamplight cast its mix of illumination and shadow over us. It was one of those moments when you forget about the expression on your face.

He dropped his hand to the pillows and my stomach turned heavily and then sank. I could all but hear the moment ending. A desperation, instinctive and visceral—it can't end there, it's not going to be like that maybe ever again, that was the moment—caught and held me.

He seemed bashful; but maybe that was just me projecting what I wanted to see. When he next looked up, the moment stirred. He swallowed. I inhaled. My eyes went from his eyes to his mouth, all propriety forgotten. Back to his eyes, and I couldn't tell you what I saw there. I was past reason and past seeing and his face swam huge and beautiful in front of mine. He inhaled; swallowed again. The sounds of breathing and movement of lips were magnified in the tiny space. The universe revolved around the three inches separating us.

He smelled like soap and was giving off an inviting heat. His eyes, normally a green-tinged hazel, had gone entirely hazel-brown. His top lip overhung his bottom, and between them was a shimmering dampness. His eyelashes would be silky to the touch. He had four, primary, accented laugh lines coming from each corner of his eyes. All this observation would come to me later; it took seconds to notice it all and years to process it coherently.

I was hot all over and my stomach had lodged itself firmly under my pounding heart. 

Two inches. Inch three was his victim. Oh, God. We wobbled towards each other, then moved away. Lurch in my stomach and chest and the feeling exploded with the quality of an implosion—a mixture of defiance and carelessness.

I pushed forward on my elbows and pressed my face, tilted and careful, into his; our mouths collided decisively. Beat of stillness as the hot sudden nature of it flooded my body—gentle tides of glittery tingle, borne on a rhythm of timed, unbearable heat—and I was pulling away before returning again to make the mash a kiss. My mouth parted, top lip pressing between his lips, softly smacking a kiss on his bottom lip.

Back; and again, because it works when the other person kisses you back, which he was. Because he tasted like coffee and salt, because we hadn't yet worked out the right angle to really kiss, because he was breathing against me and the warm puffs of air excited the nerve endings at the corners of my mouth—and the tingle that was my blood spawned a second generation in record time.

He made a small noise between two kisses and my throat returned the call. The kiss lined itself with slickness, and I slipped my tongue into his mouth, touching it to his (please?) and he shivered and hesitated and then licked his tongue along the tip of mine (god, yes). Our teeth clicked and there was a quick, embarrassed movement to avoid that accident happening again.

A frenzy to get as close with lips and tongue as we could—the kiss demanded and had its orgasm—I was holding his face between my hands—and then a sudden rush, painful and hollow, as he pulled away. I opened my eyes, lazily catching up with the action that I was supposed to be co-writing. He stared at me, his mouth pink and wet, his pupils dilated.

"Oh God." More a thought in the form of breath than intentional words.

I licked my lips, chest drawing in with my own breath, and I closed my eyes briefly. "Oh God, Sean..."

He closed his eyes just as I opened mine again, looked to be trembling, and drew his lips inward. Don't was the implication, and I bit down on my bottom lip to shut myself up. A slow cold just under my skin bantered with the heat there. Icy bile. I was going to throw up if he kept looking at me the way he was.

We stared at each other. The moment where he might've grown angry had passed. My body squirmed at the uncomfortable mix of positive and negative feelings running through it. 

His shocked, confused expression faded. He sighed and looked away. When he looked back, his palm was smoothing down my cheek and neck, but the regret written there was just as noticeable. "I'm sorry."

Cold flashed quickly through my veins, licking merciless barbs down my sides and back, and stabbing its finality with a definitive plunge deep into my chest. My heart crawled its way up my throat, sinking clawed, ropy fingers deep into the tissue there. I was going to die; and it was really un-fucking-fair, because I wasn't sure whether it'd be death by embarrassment, death by fuck up, death by disappointment, or a colorful arrangement of all of the above. 

The movement of his limbs that left him standing perplexed me. The movement of his legs that took him out of the room struck me paralyzed. There was nothing to say. We both knew that; but the knowing had started with him. I was forced to adapt to it.

I continued to lie there, minutes after the noise of his car was gone. I let my forehead touch the floor with a soft thunk and closed my eyes, intently ignoring the burning behind my eyes and staunchly keeping them dry.

 

"Is Dom there?"

"He's asleep. Want me to wake 'im?"

"N-no. That's good. I...I don't want—Bill. Don't tell him."

"Calm down, man. You crying? What's going on? And why can't I tell Dom?"

"Shut up and listen."

"Right."

"I kissed Sean."

"You kissed Sean."

"And he k-kissed me back."

"Kissed you back."

"Billy, I fucking kissed Sean."

"Well. Never thought Beanie was your type, but alrigh'."

"For the love of Christ."

"What?"

"Astin. I kissed Astin."

"...Oh. Shit."

"He fucking kissed me back. And then he fucking left. The fuck was I thinking?"

"Hold it a minute. You like blokes?"

"Yeah."

"Was there a memo about that?"

"You missed it."

"Right."

"Billy. I'm fucking s-stupid."

"Alright, alright. Don't start blubbering again. Christ, man. Don't know what to say. I mean—fuck. But he kissed you back?"

"Definitely."

"Always thought it was just a joke with you two."

"Yeah."

"Want me to come over?"

"No. Dom'd ask questions."

"Why're you so worried about that?"

"I don't know. Just don't, okay?"

"Fine, fine. But you're over here tomorrow night, you hear me?"

"Yeah. Yeah, that's—I will."

"Right. Get some sleep, y'daft cunt."

"'Night, Bill."

"Mm."

"Billy?"

"Mm?"

"Thanks."

"Any time."

 

It was several weeks later, early November I think, when next Sean and I found ourselves completely alone. We stood waiting for a ride in the inconvenient snow, puffing plumes of misty breath. Te Anau had certainly offered its fair share of frustrating weather—snow, flooding. But that was New Zealand for you. Winter was summer and summer was winter, but it made no difference either way, because one day it'd be snowing on South Island and hot as hell on North Island.

"Freezing." I did a little dance to stay warm.

"So I've noticed." He watched me, smirking.

We hadn't spoken about the kiss, and every beat of silence that rang around the topic rendered our time together more and more fake. It had gotten to the point where even the act of beginning a conversation seemed like one big avoidance tactic; the thought sickened me. 

Was it easier for him to sweep it under the rug? Did he think it was fine and dandy that the cast was forced to watch he and Christine get tangled around the unspoken something or other that was suddenly there between them? He wasn't just avoiding one issue; he was avoiding several. And it was so unlike him that I honestly worried where his head was.

But all this was not the sort of thing to tackle while standing in a snow drift and waiting for a ride back to our temporary housing on South Island. 

And looking at him with his hunched shoulders and back to me, I felt oddly guilty. I was a part of it, after all. I was able to decipher the tangled layers of silence and denial better than anyone involved and could maybe understand where we'd all gone wrong. Knowledge I had to keep to myself. So the guilt went around again, looping.

I stepped up behind him and wriggled my fingers through the gaps between his arms and sides, slipped my arms around, and laced my hands over his stomach, pulling him back against me. The squishy padding of his black jacket felt nice against the similar padding of mine.

"Mm," I sighed, feigning boredom, and put my chin on his shoulder. "Your collar's wet."

"You dumped snow down there an hour ago."

"Ooh yeah!" I grinned, blowing a stream of hot breath on the spot. "My bad."

"C'mere." He was smiling and squirming, opening his jacket and then wrapping the flaps around me, encouraging my arms around his waist underneath the jacket where the heat of his body was stifled. "Better?"

I closed my eyes and tucked my cheek against his neck. The seashell curl of his ear branded the side of my face with a combination of surface cold and subsumed warmth. "Yeah." I flattened my hands along his back and sighed. His arms were on my shoulders, fingers playing with the tangles of brown peeking out from under my wool cap.

He tilted his head and suddenly there were his lips, on my forehead, kissing and then murmuring. "I'm sorry."

I stirred. "For what?" Casual.

"These past couples weeks haven't been exactly pleasant."

I closed my eyes. His mouth stayed there, breath warm on my skin. "It was my fault."

"We both..." He sighed.

"I started it."

"Not just...that." He pulled back, looked me in the eye. "I mean this...this pretending. Sticking my fingers in my ears and acting like it didn't happen."

"It was...I dunno. We were reading and you were looking at me and I just." I tore my gaze away from his face. If I kept on looking at his liquid hazel eyes, eyes fringed by long sable-brown lashes, I wouldn't be able to resist breaking the rules again. (What are those again, little Hobbit?)

He smiled a little—amazing to me that he could even continue looking at me that way—and his fingertips lightly touched my hair again. "Is that all?"

"Shit, Sean, don't start," I laughed, despite the weight of his question; trying desperately to remain myself in a situation where I was being forced to hide things.

"Yeah, yeah." He was smiling that relentless, nothing-bad-can-happen-while-I'm-here, knee-weakening smile. And his fingers were on my neck and then my face, touching my cheeks, looking silly. His voice lowered. "I missed you. Hasn't been the same."

I smiled halfway and sunk forward again. I rubbed my face into his neck and then just stayed there, letting the cold creep in through my sleeves, knowing it couldn't touch the center of me, knowing that nothing could ever really freeze my heart again, even if this was the only solution we could find.

 

We went clothes shopping one afternoon the following weekend. I was dragging him by the time we got to the third store.

"Are we done?"

"I dunno."

"What's that mean? You're either done or you aren't."

I grinned. "You're such a guy, Sean."

"Thank you. And you're not?"

"I'm a geeky kid from Los Angeles. We're of a different race."

He stared; didn't even bring up the fact that he was from roughly the same area as me. 

"So are we done?"

"Sean!" I went through a stack of jeans, squinted at the tags. "Ooh. Want to try these on first." He groaned, flopped dramatically over the top of a clothes rack. "Come with me. You can guard the door."

"Oh, good. Just what I always wanted." But he followed anyway and crossed his arms, standing outside the not-too-sturdy looking fitting room. 

I went inside and wriggled out of my jeans, then pulled on the new pair. The button and zipper was not only annoying—the way all new jeans are—but kind of funny to work closed. I did a quick double-glance and decided I'd get them. I went to take them off, but the zipper wouldn't give. Huh. Chewing my lip, I stared at Sean's sneakers that peeked into view from under the dressing room door. Gave the zipper another rough tug.

"You alive in there?"

"Uh, yeah." I fought down a giggle. "I'm sort of stuck."

"Stuck?"

"The zipper."

He jiggled the door handle. "You break 'em, you buy 'em, you know."

"I'm sure." I mentally tapped my foot; waited for him to decide he had to come in and rescue me. And, three...two...one...

His face appeared just beyond a crack in the door. "Need help?"

"Well, get in, then!" I hurried him inside, closing the door. "People will talk..."

He smirked. "Like you care." His eyes ticked down. "Cool pants." I fidgeted, showing him where the zipper had gotten caught in the material. He pushed my hands out of the way. "Stop pulling, you're making it worse."

I found it amazing that his hands could be so freely brushing my crotch and it was alright, because he was just being Daddy Astin at that moment, and he hadn't realized the possible implications of our closeness. 

It was that innocence, that prevailing goodness, that lack of ability in him to corrupt, even when I was having a hard time keeping a straight face—it was that, in the end, that drew me to him. I wanted that simple good-natured honesty. 

In a world where everything was different shades of plastic and glitter slopped together, where you could never know exactly what people wanted from you; in that glitzy, spinning top of a world that draped itself with costumes and honey-coated promises of fame—I just wanted something real. I wanted him. 

And so what if he was already someone else's, and so what if it was just stupid single-mindedness on my part? Who the fuck cared?

The zipper's teeth came away from the material and he let go. The dressing room felt very tiny around us. He gave me one of those smiles that was more pushing up of the corners of the mouth than actual smiling and reached out, lightly petting the front of my shirt. I put my hand around his arm and looked him in the eye; watched the playfulness there drain away. 

My fingers crawled and cupped his elbow; his hand gently brushed my side—shied away—and then touched again. We sank together in an awkward way and when his belly touched mine I shivered, felt the intimacy tingle down and out to my extremities. His eyes filled my vision and all I could see was that gorgeous green-flecked brown, those long lashes—just before we kissed, with all the hesitancy of the embrace, with a slight tremble and placement that wasn't exactly right.

But once our lips touched, everything fell into place; he was warm and giving around me and on me; I could feel his breath and the damp promise of his mouth. I raised my free hand, needing something to steady us, and curled it around the top of the dressing room door. My other hand gripped his arm and then slid up and around his shoulder. His arm circled the small of my back. He pulled away for a second, I felt him breathe, and then he came forward again, kissing my bottom lip and then the crease between.

It hit that building point again, the point where it gets bolder and you want more, and his tongue almost accidentally slipped out. When he came forward next, I parted my lips and brought them together around the tip of it. He sighed, sank forward, and his hand came up, cupping the back of my neck—my head went back with the pressure and I fought to stay forward, kissing him deeper.

Around my waist, the unbuttoned pants were slipping. When we stopped to catch our breath, I laughed and put my forehead on his. "I just kiss you and my pants fall down."

He blinked quizzically and then looked down, tensing. "Oh! Oh. Sorry..." He actually crouched to pull them back up, but instead ended up bumping into a rather attentive part of my anatomy. I winced and he noticed and froze in place, looking rather nervous and overcome. "Er..."

When he was standing straight and holding me loosely again, he seemed to come back to himself. There was a blotchy splatter of red across his cheeks and nose. I leaned in and kissed the corner of his mouth, and then the space just above his upper lip.

"We should go," he sighed.

"No, we should stay." A gentle whine. I kissed him again, pressed him into the dressing room door. I was desperately holding on to the ground I'd gained. "All day."

He pulled back, creating that hot, breathy space between two kisses, and closed his eyes just as I opened mine. "God, Elijah..."

We were about to start all over again when someone knocked on the dressing room door. My stomach tensed. There was a soft "Oh, sorry!" in a Kiwi accent and then silence. We waited a good three minutes before deciding to go, and put a minute between our exits.

 

Billy slid a beer into my hand and then sat down next to me, dangling one arm across the top of the couch. "It happens on location all the time."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I took a long swallow and got comfortable.

"Look," Billy said. "Two good looking guys. Cut off from their old lifestyle, even if one of them has his family with 'im. Long days, long nights, lots of tension. It happens."

"Just like that." I chuckled. He nodded. "And what if I told you it wasn't just a physical thing?"

He stared at me. "Oh, no." Laughed, then went quiet. "Come now. Be sensible, Lijah. You don't think it's—well, think about it. Once this whole party is over, don't you think things'll be different?"

I thought about it. Tried to wrap my brain around the possibility, if any, there was of Sean having feelings for me. "I'm telling you, Bill, this is. I've never felt this way before."

"Welcome to the land of clichés, my friend. It's the first sign of infatuation."

"I am not infatuated."

"Oh?"

"...and why's that the first sign?"

"'Cause, ya know. You start with the 'oh, I've never felt this way' and the 'it'll never be like this with anyone else' and the 'bleedin' Christ that boy's got a nice arse.'"

I screwed up my face. "Yeah, okay. That last line is more you than me, Braveheart."

He laughed, kicked me in the leg. "What? You don't eye up Sean?"

Squirming, I sighed. "Well. Yeah. Just. I dunno. It's not a shallow...eyeing up."

"It's a deeply meaningful eyeing up?"

"No! It's more of a...wanting kind of...overwhelmed thing."

He watched me for a long moment, then pointed the neck of his beer bottle at me. "You'd better be careful, man. You're worryin' me." There was a small silence. "So what's he sayin' about all this?"

"Ah," I coughed lightly. "We haven't actually talked about it. Not really."

"So it's just been a lot of shagging, then?" His eyebrows went up.

"Oh, God, no. Billy. Jesus." I shifted around. "We've kissed a couple times. It isn't...normal yet. It's really awkward. I mean, once we—it gets good." I paused. "Really good." It felt deliciously forbidden to talk about it.

"It's gotta stop, though," Billy injected. "Or there needs to be a limit, yeah? Christine's a good woman. Y'can't just keep on like this, doing her wrong. I mean, I know y'don't wanna hear it, Lij, but you hafta. It's one thing if it's just to get some tension ironed out. But if you're sayin' it's more...well, then, it's more like an affair, isn't it?"

I sighed. Felt my chest tighten painfully; if seeing Christine in my head every time I thought about just what Billy was saying made me feel ten types of awful, I could only imagine what Sean felt. Hell, I adored the woman. But there was a part of me that just...wanted. Selfishly wanted.

"You're right. And we both know it. But something happens when we're alone. Something...and it feels so fucking right."

"The world is shades of gray, Elijah." Billy leaned back, staring off towards the ceiling and sloshing the beer around in its bottle. "I'm sure Astin's the kind of guy who could love a lot of people at once. But that doesn't make it practical. And it doesn't mean that in the end, it wouldn't break him. So lay your guidelines and make your decisions, but do it soon, before you start doing something crazy like falling in love with the guy."

He patted my shoulder on the way to get another beer and I said nothing, choosing instead to wallow in the numbness that paralyzed my chest.

 

We hid from a thunderstorm in the Hobbit trailer—probably not the best place to seek shelter, but it was too good of an opportunity to be alone. I raced him to the trailer and won and he fell over his Hobbit feet up the makeshift steps and inside, costume completely damp, wig askew. He blamed Samwise Gamgee for the loss. I grinned and fell on him, eliciting a pained exclamation. 

He dug out the pile of magazines and bolts of fabric from under him and somehow found the tiny, dusty couch underneath. I asked him if he knew we had a couch in the trailer; he hadn't. 

There was something flat-out mad and wonderful about being drenched on a movie set in the middle of a hectic day. The fantastic New Zealand weather cracked its glory with a loud pomp over our heads. I was overwhelmed; stuck in one of those deep, bottomless moments, and so in love with life that I wanted to laugh out loud.

I wrapped my arms around Sean and kissed him, kissed him until I had him pinned against the couch and I was on his lap, kissed him until we were both hot under a cold sheen of rain-slicked skin. 

"Stupid wig," I muttered against his mouth as his hands found a way under Frodo's cloak, stalled there, confused by all the layers, even though they didn't plan on going any farther. "Dude, your make-up is completely trashed."

"I had a feeling, what with the torrents of rain and all." He grinned, nuzzled said face up into my throat, touched the cold press of the chain around my neck. I felt the soft wetness of parted lips taking my throat in a long kiss; my pulse stumbled and I sank against him, exhaling hotly.

It didn't matter that this was as far as we'd gotten—snagging time when we were alone and not exhausted from the shooting schedule was rare. For the first time in my life, it was just fine to make out like dorky teenagers. There was no demand in it, no performance I was being persuaded to make. In fact, when I thought about it, I had never had that kind of relationship.

"What're you doing over the holiday break?" I kissed his jaw, sunk further into the warm gap between his thighs.

"Chris wants to go home for at least half the break. Maybe more."

Well, that stung. But hey, what did I expect? Play it smart, Elwood. I smiled, nodded, and laid my cheek on his shoulder. "Must miss people back home. I almost forget there's still a whole life back there. I should think about visiting, too."

"What, and leave me here?" 

I pulled back. "Hm?"

He shrugged, stared at the prop Ring around my neck. "I was going to stay."

"Oh." I shrugged, too. "That's cool. Yeah. We'll be moving to new flats and stuff, so staying behind is not a bad idea."

"You're full of very accommodating opinions," he commented, grinning and looking at me in that penetrative way that made me squirm.

"Fine. I'm doing whatever you're doing. Happy?"

"My Doodle, the sheep." He ducked a punch I aimed at his shoulder. His gigantically boyish smile melted me and my daring smirk faded. I leaned in to kiss him again. 

 

"Freakin' Dead Marshes," I mumbled into Sean's jacket, slumping against his side in the back of a transport van. "I don't think I'll ever be dry again."

"You'll live," he replied, resting his cheek on my hair. The road sped bumpily under us, and I let exhaustion fizzle its way out of my muscles. It had never felt so good to just sit still and close my eyes. Even the uneven rumble of the car was therapeutic.

I floated in and out of sleep. Every time I worked up the effort to look around, I noticed Sean watching me. Feeling safe, I would let myself go back to dozing. Didn't realize how tired I was until I woke up hours later in a bed I didn't recognize. Despite the comforting, domestic noises of clanking dishes and voices below, it was weird to have no idea where I was. 

I relaxed in the dark, the sheets a warm, soft tangle around me. The pictures lining the counters and the faint floral scent gave away the location in short time. I smiled, wrapped my arms around a pillow and put my nose to it, breathing deeply. It felt good to get solid hours of sleep and even better to wake up with the scent of Sean around me. I wondered if he was the one who brought me up the stairs.

When Sean came in the room, I was nearly asleep again. He circled the bed and sat down just next to me, nudging my shoulder. "Hey. We're gonna eat. You want to come down?"

I rolled over and squinted; the room was completely dark except for the bold slices of light that framed the door. "Yeah. 'M'still half 'sleep." And still in my street clothes, I noticed, feeling the wrinkly cling of my jeans all out of place. "Who's over?"

"Just Dom," Sean answered. "He offered to cook. They're having a good time." He smirked, glancing back at the hallway. "I've got the fire extinguisher handy."

I watched his dark profile. "Aren't you tired, too?"

He shrugged. "I'm okay." His fingers lightly smoothed a wrinkle from my jeans and then tugged. "C'mon. You haven't eaten since lunch."

Downstairs in the kitchen, we were greeted with the sight of Ali eating a grilled cheese. Sean peeked at her over a plate piled high with them, then raised an eyebrow at Dom.

"Um," Dom said. "There was a...conflict. With the shrimp. Little scuffle. No worries, I took care of them."

Chris set down a plate of hash browns and put a hand up, mouthing, "He burnt them," in me and Sean's direction. 

I giggled and claimed a chair next to Ali. "Can I have one, or are all these yours?" She laughed and shook her head and then handed me one.

Once we were all seated, Dom heaped praise on Christine's grilled cheese sandwiches, and gave a long diatribe about why shrimp weren't really good for you, anyway. I amused myself by poking at Ali under the table and stealing potatoes off her plate. Sean watched us every now and then, and I was just waiting for him to tell the "kids" to settle down.

Sean and Chris didn't look at each other much through the dinner, and my stomach squirmed around the buttery bread and cheese confection. To make things worse, Sean offered to drive Dom home afterward and left me to help clean up. 

Luckily that didn't involve much more than the dishwasher, a full trash bag, and a sponge or two. After putting Ali to sleep Chris came back downstairs and offered me a beer. I sat at the kitchen table, messing with a deck of cards that had been there the whole night and told her no thanks. 

"You look tired," I said. "I'll keep an ear out for Ali if you want to go to sleep."

"I'm good." She leaned against the kitchen counter and was quiet for a moment. "Gonna miss us over the break?" A smile tugged her lip and inwardly I groaned.

"You guys are gonna come back for the holiday, right?" I found it hard to believe that even with stress on their relationship Sean and Chris would be able to bear being apart for Christmas.

"Oh, of course. The last weekend or so. Ali misses Mom and I want to spoil her a little. She's been so great about the move."

Things would be a lot quieter without the rascal; I had to admit that. I desperately wanted to get out of the room, though, before Chris decided to confide in me again. Didn't know how to handle the constant ache it brought. Sean hit a patch of great timing and rescued me; got back just in time to halt the conversation in its tracks.

"Aw, hon, you should've just asked Dom to wait. Elijah doesn't have a car." 

Sean stopped in the middle of taking his jacket off and shrugged it back on, looking mildly annoyed at himself. "Didn't even think about it."

"Oh," Christine said. "Stay then. Not a problem. I don't want you guys on the road again this late." Sean and me both started to protest in unison and she looked at us, laughing. "It's not a problem," she repeated, disappearing to look for extra pillows.

I looked over at Sean and made a morbid death face, cutting a finger across my throat repeatedly. He shrugged, looked helpless, and returned my miming with an equally dreadful look.

In the living room, Chris was tugging the pullout couch into order. I helped and Sean wandered in to offer a blanket from their room. By the time they left me, a huge hunk of my attention had gone out of the room with him, and the pullout looked lumpy and uninviting. I supposed I could've said no, but what was the point? Would've just been more obvious and I had a feeling that any little indication in front of Chris would ring in disaster. Paranoia isn't fun, kids.

 

Another sticky dream tore me from sleep. It didn't take much; the bed was uneven hell on my back and napping had thrown off my sleeping pattern. I was awake all at once as if I'd never fallen asleep and I hated that feeling—dry, sore, and restless. I rolled off the pullout and made for the general direction of the kitchen, bumping into walls in an unfamiliar fashion.

Water sounded great so I snagged a glass and ran the tap cold. I pulled out one of the kitchen chairs and sat, squinting in the direction of the nearest window and letting the icy water chill and soothe my throat. I was ready to try for sleep again when noise on the stairs turned my head. I got up and reached for my glass at the same time. 

Sean appeared in the second doorway of the kitchen, hair sticking up all funny and sweatpants hanging low and loose on his hips. He stopped in mid-shuffle, feet coming to a noisy halt on the tile. 

"Can't sleep?" he whispered.

Distracted, I leaned back against the table and answered in just as hushed a tone. "Yeah. I shouldn't've slept so long before. Fucked me up."

"We don't sleep very well together anymore." 

What kind of reply was that? He came up to me and before I could catch the gentle desperation in his eyes his hands were touching my shoulders and then petting up into my hair.

"You, ah." His chest drew in. "You look very nice standing there."

I giggled at the compliment simply because he looked at such a loss. So freakin' adorable that I just wanted to tell him I loved him for that reason alone. 

He put a hand over my mouth and grinned. "Shhh." And then he leaned in and replaced his hand with his lips and I lost my balance. My hand felt for something to hold onto, hit the half-empty water glass, and knocked it over. Just as our bodies swayed back into the table my fingers brushed its surface and I felt the sprawling puddle and didn't care. I curled my fingers through his sleep-mused hair and tasted mint on his breath and kept on tasting until I couldn't breathe.

It wasn't that his passion overwhelmed me; it was the way he dealt with it, let it build up to the point where he didn't know how or when to show it, and then just fell forward into it with eyes closes and arms reaching. 

I was shifting my weight back onto the table slowly; testing the leverage and praying it didn't tip over. For some reason it didn't so I sat back, taking his hips between my legs and curling my ankles around the backs of his knees. His fingers squeezed down my sides, fumbled, and then repeated the motion just when I thought he might've been ready to make a go for my shirt.

"Ah!" I squirmed, bumped his chest.

"Mm?" He pulled back, worried.

"The water." I laughed and flung my arms around his neck, trying to get away from the puddle that soaked my boxers. "I'm all wet."

"You sure are," he murmured into my ear, making me laugh harder. 

I pressed my face into his neck and my shoulders shook. "Stop! We're going to wake everyone up." His hands circled firmly around the backs of my thighs and he lifted me off the table and forward onto his chest. Squeaking, I clung to him. "What're you doin'?"

"Hold still, would you?" He carried me into the living room after nearly running us both headlong into a wall and stumbled. He crumpled down to his knees on the rug just next to the pullout and I pushed forward, sending him onto his back and then spreading out over him.

Before he could say or do anything I leaned in and kissed the soft crease of his neck, arching my belly and the flat of my pelvis down firmly over his. His body shifted and grew warm—I actually felt the sudden flush and it did things to me, things that drew my mind to a single pinpointed desire.

He made some inarticulate sound when I softly bit down on the tender part of his throat. Grinning to myself I nudged my knee between his thighs and pressed up slowly. He squirmed. "Lijah...I, um, it's sort of a bad spot don't you think—" ("I'm nervous and I've never—") I stopped and peeked down at him and then kissed his parted mouth. 

We could've done the slow thing. The waiting until we could find a proper bedroom with a decent bed and undress each other slowly and do it the right way. Or we could just bypass all that shit and I could make him feel good right then and there on the living room floor. 

I rolled his earlobe between my tongue and upper lip. "Can you be quiet?"

"Can I—" His chest rose and fell quickly.

"—be quiet." I tripped my hand down near my thigh, touching the waistband of his sweatpants.

"Well, I..." His belly sunk and his hands curled down my back.

"Daddy?"

We both froze in place and looked up in the direction of the tiny voice. I backed up off Sean slowly, rolled onto my heels and then stood, a chilly weight cannon-balling my stomach. She stood there, tiny in her swimmingly large pajamas, her small features screwed up thoughtfully. Sean was at her side in seconds, leaving me with clammy hands and a pulse going a hundred miles an hour. I was cold with embarrassment.

He threw me one last look. "I've got to take her back upstairs." I nodded and he was gone. The silence pounded my eardrums until I thought I'd go crazy. I paced around the living room and eventually fell on the pullout, squeezing my eyes shut. 

 

In a noisy corner at Dom's twenty-third birthday party—which doubled as a pre-holiday goodbye party for the cast and crew—I clung to Billy's shirt. I was completely drunk and feeling downright sorry for myself.

"It's fuckin' torture, man, and," I burped and put a hand to my mouth, "and it just goes on and on," I rolled my wrist, motioning with my fingers, "and there's no fucking end in sight I'm telling you. I should feel b-bad," I snuffled loudly, "but I just want her to go already so I can—"

"Elijah?"

"Mmrph?"

"Shut it."

I whined and fell headfirst into his lap, clinging to his thighs. "Billl-eeee."

"I dunno what you want me to tell you." Billy looked down and arranged my head away from his crotch. "Besides the fact that you smell of beer and are making an arse out of yourself at the moment."

"Where's the wise hobbit that I know and love?" He glared at me. "In a completely platonic way, mind you—"

"Baggins, get your head outta my boyfriend's pants." Dom came out of nowhere, a beer in each hand. He handed one off to Billy and shoved me into a chair of my own, claiming Billy's side. "Unless I'm getting a bit of three-way action for my birthday..." His eyebrows shot up.

Billy snickered, slid an arm around Dom, and took a drag off his bottle. "I don't think our lad here is up to action of any sort tonight."

"You're lookin' a bit green around the gills," Dom agreed.

I felt like crawling into a tiny dark space and hibernating the liquor away, but that wasn't an option. The night wasn't over yet. I had no idea where Sean was. Probably off with Chris somewhere or talking to someone on the crew.

"He's moaning about his gardener," Billy said, leaning into Dom's arm.

I opened one eye and then the other, squinting from Dom to Billy. "You told him?"

"Um," Billy said. "...yes?"

"Boyd!"

"Well, what did you expect? Couldn't exactly keep it to myself."

"I told you—"

"Oh, belt up, Lij, seriously," Dom said. "It was pretty obvious." He propped up his legs on a chair. "It's not my business so I won't preach, but look here." He broke off and looked at Billy. "When's the break start?"

"Thirteenth," Billy answered.

"Right. That's five days from now. You and Sam can sort shite out then. So quit whining. Go pop a mint and sing some karaoke."

I rubbed my eyes, then sighed. "Yeah. Um. But no karaoke. Feel like shit."

With my eyes closed I felt unstable, almost like I was wobbling in place. The sprawling rooms of Barrie's house were dark and smoky and so unlike the daylight version that I felt weak around the middle. I shouldn't have gotten drunk so fast, I knew that, and that was probably why I felt the way I did. I wanted Sean. I missed his rock-steady presence just inches from my left hand. 

I left Dom and Billy—who were becoming engrossed in each other, anyway—and wandered, ducking invitations to talk from this and that person until my way through the crowd was smooth. I searched for the quieter rooms, hoping Barrie wouldn't mind, and found a hallway that was mostly deserted. Towards the back near the patio there was a sitting room. It had a glossy black piano in its center and I sat down in front of it, absently tapping the keys.

A soft vibration hummed against my thigh minutes later. It took me a couple seconds to register that it was my cell-phone. I fumbled with the tiny thing. "Hello?"

"Where are you?" 

Sean's voice, a single notch above warm, washed down my back. "Umm. One of the rooms near the patio. 'S'got a piano. Why?"

"Merry and Pippin managed to pull themselves apart long enough to tell me you'd gone off looking sick."

"Oh."

"You okay?"

"Sure."

"Want me to come?"

"I'm cool."

"Alright."

I hung up before he could push any farther. I'd probably cave if he did. He knew me too well. 

Drunken piano playing wasn't the best kind one could manage, but I made a decent attempt. I tried to remember if I had ever told Sean I could play. It seemed important all of the sudden that he know.

I didn't know what I was trying to play—this repetitive set of notes from some lesson or other that had stuck in my head. My fingers weren't cooperating but I wanted to recall the notes, desperately needed the memory to come back. There was a void around the place where they should be. I stopped, angry, when the thought wouldn't complete itself, and slammed the cover down over the keys.

"You're a shitty liar."

I turned, nearly fell off the piano bench, and clutched its edge with pale fingers. Well of course, my brain told me. Of course he was going to come. You made the mistake of telling him where you were. He was closing the door behind him.

"Didn't know you played piano." He sat down on the bench and I made more room.

"My mom made me take lessons. Voice lessons, too, but they never went anywhere. Had to have as much on my resume as possible. You know how that is."

"You're drunk, too," he pointed out.

"Yeah. 'S'wearing off, though. Now I just feel...like crap." I wobbled forward a bit.

He put a hand up and gripped my shoulder. "Chris already went home to pack."

"Oh?" There was blankness in my voice that I knew he'd pick up on, but I couldn't help it. No way could I keep pretending that what we were doing was normal. Oh, fuck, sure, I wanted to forget—and there were moments when it was so easy to, when the humor was flowing and his hands were on me and his mouth was doing things to mine and I just didn't give a fuck. But the alcohol made me hurt and I wanted to fall off the face of the planet rather than confront what all the pain meant.

"Things have been awful," he admitted, lowering his voice. "She's coming back the weekend of the holiday, but." He touched my jaw and I looked at him directly. "Elijah, I—I feel like I have so much to say to you but when I think about actually saying it, everything just falls out of my head."

"What's there to say?" My eyes filled with tears all at once, which really sucked, because it was too late to hide it. I don't even think there was a reason.

"Hey," he breathed, and rubbed his fingers down my jawline. "There's plenty to say. There's, well, things I don't know if I can wrap my brain around just yet."

I cleared my nose and wiped at my eyes, swallowing thickly. "We've got a couple weeks, I guess."

"Yeah. And we won't have to worry about Ali sneaking in." He grinned. "And then I won't have to worry about convincing her that we're rehearsing."

I chuckled, shaking my head, and blinked puffy eyes at him. "Rehearsing for what? Gay porn?" He turned red and I smiled. "Kidding."

He walked me back into the hallway, arm around my waist. I leaned into him, gently nuzzling his neck and giving a soft sigh. "Drive me home?"

"Mm," he agreed. "Can't stay, though. I told Chris I'd help."

Five days.

 

My foot bounced off the rubber floor mats the whole way to the airport. The process of getting everyone boarded took a lot longer than I expected. I bounced around the terminal. 

And then Sean bent down and clung to Ali, burying her tiny body against his. It sobered the situation for me in the space of a heartbeat, seeing them talk in quiet little voices with Sean on one knee. I loitered around the nearest coffee stand and continued to watch them from a distance, hiding smiles behind the rim of my Styrofoam cup.

Despite the fact that I had calmed down it was still all want that and want him, and the moment burned its impression and tasted forever in my memory like hazelnut and the waft of steam. 

Those of us that were going back to Wellington finally broke away. But what I felt then in those moments strangled me all the way back to the van. 

It was simply this: I knew that when the time came that I had to let him go, when the world in all its fantastic fucked up glory took us by our ears and tugged us in separate directions, that I wouldn't go peacefully. It wasn't that I wanted to fight, or that I felt I had the right to. It was that I didn't think I could do anything else.

 

Once we were alone I felt numb. The expanse of time we had in front of us seemed limitless. Hours and hours and fucking hell—the silence. A quiet that spoke volumes. I didn't want to talk or rationalize or think about Ali with her twin braids and her candy-sweet smile or Christine with her clear green eyes and huge heart. Like a black ring around all that realism was the urge—that prickle in my little fingers, that swell working its way up my throat and into my mouth that wanted me to lunge forward and grab him, mark him, tell him everything. It was seductive and it guided me, needed me to do it, and was telling me to shut the fuck up.

Just inside the door and shrouded by the darkness of the hallway he reached for me, fingers creeping from handful to handful of my denim jacket before combing through my hair and pulling me in. He laid his forehead on mine. Our noses brushed and then our lips, and there was a sweetly bruised feeling just where my heart pounded.

"Sean," I began, and he kissed me again.

And I knew instantly that my plan to ravage him was not what needed to happen.

"Shhh." His hands slid under my jacket, pushing the material off my shoulders. Seconds later it was on a hook with the other jackets behind me (useless, pointless, why do people even wear coats?) and his fingers were on my neck, cupping my face, touching my shoulders. "I don't know exactly how this works, but, I—" He sighed into my neck, holding me and chuckling. "I've been thinking about it constantly."

I took his wrist and started down the hall. My hands were trembling and I cursed my nerves silently, shut up shut up shut up. And sure, it felt weird and unromantic and stupid, because I wasn't exactly Mr. Experience and I wanted to make something meaningful out of this, but—

Shoes were abandoned. I slid off my socks and joined him on the bed, pulse punching my Adam's apple relentlessly. I went to take off my shirt and he gave me this odd look and stalled my hands. 

"Hey." He drew me further onto the bed. His eyes were clear and my stomach twisted up with wanting. "I may not have any boyfriends under my belt, but I know a thing or two."

I laughed silently, averted my eyes, and pet the front of his shirt. "Sorry."

"I should be the nervous one here," he continued, looking his age for just a second before the lines at the corners of his eyes smoothed with seriousness.

"I was just going to tackle you," I admitted, grinning while he bit his lip and undid the buttons on my shirt with meticulous care. "Um. But then, well."

He leaned in and kissed my throat, working the last few buttons free and letting the shirt hang open. His knuckles brushed my belly and chest. "This isn't, ah, too weird. I mean..." He opened his mouth and kissed damp and long at the apex of my neck and shoulder. "It's just you." I could feel his grin as the shirt fell back off my shoulders and his mouth found that spot just under my earlobe. "Just you. God, you..."

I pushed unruly wisps of hair back from his forehead and then cupped the base of his neck, pulling him close and shrugging my shirt the rest of the way off. Warmth flared, spilled gently, coating me from the inside out with awareness.

His hands were warm and inquisitive down my back, up my arms. The pads of his fingertips splayed across the softness of my stomach, up the center of my chest, bringing blood to rush against the flesh there. I felt my nipples tingle when a touch skittered over them. He was watching it all, watching my face, his lips sealed and thoughtful, his eyes glazed with adoration.

"What've you been thinking about?" His words stumbled, breathy and just a little courageous, but his hands were doing just fine, glancing off my cheeks and teasing the strawberry colored curves of my ears. If anything, I wasn't used to being touched that way. The urgency just under my skin was torn between dashing ahead and staying, letting him touch every inch of my body. It was a brand of physical confusion that could be savored.

My fingers skipped over the edge of his shirt, hesitated, and then darted back, lifting and slowly tugging upwards. My knuckles grazed his bare flesh and the feeling was strangely and unpredictably more intimate than anything had been so far. Hungry for more, I pulled him against me; the ticklish brush of chest hair against my own hairless skin sent shivers down my sides. I kissed him, swept my tongue between his lips, breathing against his mouth. His fingers tightened at the small of my back.

"Can't get it out of my head," I muttered between kisses. "Dream about it." Kiss. "Daydream about it. Drives me crazy." Kiss. "Wanna do things to you. Touch you, hear you." Kisskiss; his tongue in my mouth, curling-licking, the result of it falling thickly down my body and settling. 

His hands went lower, gripped my jean-covered backside and pulled me against his body. We tumbled over. On our sides and horizontal—much more comfortable. His tongue was on my collarbone, chased by kisses and his breathing, and I wrapped a leg around the back of his calf, sighing.

"Mm, pants." I nudged him onto his back and tugged the zipper open, and with a bit of maneuvering had them off his ankles. Eyes darted immediately to his crotch. And then I felt stupid and averted my gaze. But it wasn't hard to miss, if you catch me. He pulled me down on top of him and kissed me again. My leg fell between his knees and I pushed them apart, resting my stomach on his.

"'M I too heavy?" I settled between his legs fully, elbows digging into the bed on either side of his body, mouth on skin that was deliciously salty and smooth and covered in the way he always smelled.

"You're fine." He grinned suddenly, eyelashes tipped downward. "Overdressed. But fine."

I laughed into his chest; exhaled and felt my belly press into his. "Oh, now who's pushy."

Wrapped me up in arms and legs and kisses again and I lost track of time. Memorized his mouth and tongue and teeth. With eyes closed we kissed this way, kissed until the skin around my mouth was damp and burning, until there was no hesitance in lunging or nibbling or taking and losing control between us. My mind floated on the cushion of soft sounds that our lips created, of his hands on my back burning impressions, of the slow and delicious tightening of my jeans.

When I opened my eyes again and breathed air that wasn't at least partially mingled with his breath he was staring up at me—his mouth red and his eyes dark glittering slits. And I had to admit that nothing had ever felt quite like that. Always wondered how it would feel, brain above the belt despite the situation. I became aware of the tingling that had brought up every hair on my body. My skin was gently boiling. 

God, could there be any other way to do this?

"You okay?" He shifted a little. We pried our stomachs from the sticky, hot cling they had formed and I sunk lower onto him, trying to ignore the hardness digging into my thigh.

"Mm." I kissed his chest and then pressed my cheek to the warmth. "I can't feel my tongue."

He laughed and dropped his head back on a pillow. "Mmm."

I sat myself gingerly on his thighs, fingers pressing into the softness of his belly, and his eyes trailed down my body. He smiled and reached out, lightly undoing the button on my fly and then the zipper. Fingertips smoothed the waistband from my skin, feeling for the band of suppressed body heat. I curled my fingertips under the elastic track of his boxers just as his fingers encountered mine.

Pause. And I wondered how far we'd go. His hands closed around the back of my waist on either side and I felt his pelvis lightly press up between my thighs. Skitter of sensation, borderline tickle, and I sunk teeth down on my bottom lip.

"You," he began, and didn't know what to say, so he laughed and exhaled carefully. "I—"

I smiled and scooted back off his thighs long enough to wriggle out of my pants. The smooth friction of our legs brought goosebumps up on my skin in the wake of a shiver. I leaned over and kissed him, rolled the cloth of his boxers down before I could think about doing it. He didn't move to stop me so I kept going, wanting to complete the motion smoothly without—okay, so I was failing miserably, because boxers just don't come off like that when someone's lying down. So we ended up spluttering laughing into the kiss while he wriggled and shifted to get the damn things off.

Once they were off his ankles, I threw them pointedly across the room and his arms came up around me, pulling me back into a heated kiss. "That went well." Laughing again, his mouth open and surrendering to the wet dip of my tongue. 

Couldn't ignore the naked press of him for long. I ran my fingers along his belly and sides as we kissed. My folded legs that flanked either side of his hips cramped beyond my attention. I let my fingers linger on his lower belly for a while, then pulled back.

"You can—"

"You sure?" It was hot and close between us—a tiny world with invisible workings.

He nodded. Looked like he wanted to say something, but didn't. He kissed me and I trailed my fingers down over his pelvis—tips searching that soft, hot crease right there between thigh and hip and then onto and over the shape of him. He closed his eyes when I wrapped my fingers around his cock and smoothed upwards.

I sat up on his thighs and folded my other hand atop the first, covering him entirely with the inside of my hands. I thought of nothing as I stroked him, partly due to concentrating, partly because of my focus on his face and his breathing. There was the faint resistant squeak of the bed and his chest rising and falling. The silence and dark in the room were interchangeable elements. At moments I closed my eyes and at others I stared down at him, but within the parameters of either option the inky quiet brought a lull over my thoughts.

The minutes ticked and his eyes stayed closed. His hands strayed to my thighs, holding and tapping and stroking. I couldn't see much in the dim suffused moonlight, but he was ridged and hot inside the pump of my hands. He began to move into me, just a faint rock upward at the end of each alternating stroke. My heart hammered loudly against my ears, filling my head with rushes of noise. Minutes in, I couldn't discern between the pulse in the tips of my fingers and the pulse of his cock. The tip wept wetness against my fingers, and his cheeks darkened, and I began to alternate between long-and-slow and short-and-fast, letting my left hand stray to stroke his trembling inner thighs and belly.

His back bent and his face went still; his right hand curled around a stretch of my boxers tightly and his chest quivered and then settled. There was faint shifting of his legs and I could feel the muscles in his thighs tense under me. The tremble of his breathing twirled, erotic and scratchy, in the depths of my awareness. I sped up and his lips parted and his eyes opened and he looked at me and squirmed-tensed all at once as he came, a rushed sighing groan falling past his lips. My hands and his belly were quickly damp and I kept going, haltingly working my fingers around the tip of his cock as it continued to spend.

His fingers were dug into my thighs on either side and he came back down, breathing heavily until his hands fell to the bed. I moved to get a towel before he could distract me. Climbing back over his body I cleaned his stomach and my hands. He watched me, looking lethargic, and then sat up against the headboard and brought me against his chest.

"Hi," I murmured cheekily. His lips smothered the sound and I could feel his smile. Fingertips on my face, pressing the line of my cheekbone and highlighting the very tiny space between our faces. His dropped his arms around my back, lightly covering my shoulder with his mouth. The silence crept back, put up with the soft sound of his efforts, but etched the moment with its presence. I opened my eyes when he stopped.

He was staring at me and I was about to ask if anything was wrong when he interrupted, voice just above a whisper. "I've wanted you since the moment we met." The words were thick on his tongue and I knew he knew they sounded scripted; that he wanted to say something else, something that wasn't just part of an old cliche. "I didn't want to let it become this. I came up with lists of reasons why you made me react the way you did, all these diversionary explanations. And the whole, ah, you know, gender factor—it didn't even register. Before I know it I'm craving you and all that other crap you go through when you shouldn't and—"

"It's okay." I stroked his hair.

"But it's not," he pressed. "And not just for the obvious reasons." My stomach sank. "You have a whole life, a whole career that is just...on the edge of exploding. And I was supposed to take care of you, just make that change easy for you. Not complicate it with my own feelings. Not give you all this bullshit to deal with. I haven't even considered how guilty all this must make you feel. Why haven't you yelled at me, yet? Demanded things? How can you just...let me?"

I love you.

The fuck I will tell him that now. Out of the proverbial question, kid.

"I figured you'd call the shots. I mean, it's your..." Family. Wife. Child. Your entire goddamn life. And where does Frodo fit in there? "...well, decision."

He closed his eyes and laid his forehead on my chest, mumbling into the skin there, "What are we?"

"We don't have to be anything." 

"It can't work like that. See, and there's the difference. I expect to be able to call this something. To define it. To deal with it however I can. I need that."

I do, too, deep down. But I can't tell you, because I'll wonder every day after if you're going along with me because you want to take care of my needs or because it's what you really want.

"This is complicated." I traced the curve of his ear with a single fingertip. "Alright, how about this. Chris is coming back in three weeks. Until then, we see how we feel. Whether this is just something that'll wear off or...not."

He stared at me, brow knitted. "Are you serious?"

"Um. Yes?" What else do you want me to be?

"I. I mean, you're talking like—"

"Liiike?"

"I didn't expect you to be so..."

Eyebrow. "Presumptuous?" Monotone. "Stupid?"

"Psychic, more like."

"How so?"

"Things with Chris have been a lot worse for a lot longer than I've told anyone. And not because of you. It's starting to affect things. The baby's beginning to notice. We had all these plans, y'know, for after. And now when they come up, I feel nauseous. We got married so young, and now. Now everything is up in the air again. What I'm saying is, is, I don't want you to think that the things that may happen are on account of you. I don't want to put that on you, especially since it isn't true."

My mind spun off in a single direction. I grabbed it by the tail and jerked it back just in time. "You have to do what you have to do, Sean."

An uncomfortable pause found us clinging, eyes closed. I cradled his head against my chest, my fingers twined in his hair. The rapid cooling of our skin drew my attention and I took him under the covers with me, eyelids already sinking. Going any farther held no appeal. There were no more words that night. 

Something I couldn't possibly have known then as I fell asleep: there would be no dreams, either. I would never have the garden dream again. I never technically found out what that light was. But I don't think I needed to. I knew what it was (him). And even if it wasn't for that knowledge, searching dreams for answers wasn't going to get me anywhere; it was in real life that I had to find them. Maybe that was the whole point. Maybe I was trying to tell myself something.

And then there was this: I was on the straight and narrow path to healing. Regardless of any possible detours I might take, the mere prospect of him and the revelation of at least part of my need for him had already completed a large part of me. 

For the first time in my life, I felt like a grown man. Validation through love? Not really. That would have been an oversimplification. Validation through being wanted, through the process of figuring out that he just might feel the same. Feeling equal. Equal and serious. And not just the pseudo-maturity the masses pinned me with. The real sort, the sort that meant something. I had just been a boy all along, anyway. They just hadn't noticed. And now that I felt I was becoming more, I wondered if anyone if the wide, glitzy world gave a damn. I wasn't sure I wanted them to.

 

The next morning I woke up with poptarts on my chest. Well, on a plate on my chest, but either way. The warmth and smell was confusing considering I was still in bed. Sean was on top of the covers next to me, already showered and reading through a sheaf of papers. 

Huh. I ate half of one poptart in a single bite and sat up, scratching a hand through my hair. "Thag 'oo," I mumbled around the mouthful, climbing out from under the sheets and sitting indian-style facing him. His hair was still wet. Being with him this way was nice. The poptart wasn't bad, either. Who isn't a sucker for a guy who can toast poptarts to just the right level of golden brown? 

Finished eating, I crawled up to his side, stuck my nose against the wet hair behind his ear, and smiled. "And good morning."

He tilted his head and kissed my hair. "Morning."

I raised a challenging eyebrow. "We weird?"

He laughed. "No. We're not weird."

"Good!" I grabbed the other poptart. "I'd hate to spoil this gourmet feast with morning after awkwardness." Grinning, I shot up, tripped over his duffel bag that sat at the end of my bed, and stumbled into the bathroom. I glanced back only long enough to see him with his face bowed into his papers with cheeks flaming red and a hopeless grin curling his lips.

 

We spent most of the following day apart. He was on his phone even before he hit the pavement of my driveway on his way out. I found myself on my cell seconds later, just as busy, checking up on everyone that had stayed in New Zealand for the holiday, including several crewmembers I had promised to have a drink with. Second to last on the list was my mom.

She chewed my ear off as I wandered around the flat, packing up some of the messier corners. The move to new housing was weeks away but I knew last minute packing, even with help, would result in a lot of missing items. Normally I wouldn't give a shit, but there were a lot of memories in the mess I'd collected since I came to New Zealand and I didn't want to risk misplacing anything.

Lastly I tried to call Hannah in New York, but she wasn't in. So I called Mom back because I'd promised if I couldn't get Hannah that I'd let her know. She hemmed and hawed predictably. I rung off with her after promising her I'd call at least twice before Christmas.

Decided to chase Sean down. He was having lunch in Wellington with some of the unit three camera guys. I figured that with the limited number of people left from the cast, he'd expect me to bug him at least once before the end of the day. 

I found him sitting towards the back with four scruffy looking Kiwi guys gathered around. Several other patrons of the café kept looking over, some obviously thinking about approaching and some so used to our presence that they just smiled and went back to their lunches. I wound my way neatly around waitresses balancing trays and traffic from the bathroom and squished my way into the booth next to him.

"Morning, lads." I smiled at Sean as a chorus of reply came from everyone at the table.

"Stalking me already?" Sean held up a spoonful of quivering something or other in front of me. "Strawberry banana."

"Ooh," I hummed, and immediately accepted the yogurt offering. He went back to chattering on with the guy to his left, his attention to me no more than a heartbeat's pause.

I poked the guy across from me. "Dan, right?"

"That's right."

I nodded, smiling, and eavesdropped on Sean.

"Don't have a location in mind, no. I mean, it's just an idea. I'm really hoping he'll go for it."

"Can't spare the time now, though."

"Oh, no, no, hell no. It'd be, I dunno. Some summer after principle shooting. Bounced the idea off Dominic, y'know. He's got a few good ideas. We'll see."

After everyone was finished and conversation petered out Sean picked up the bill and ignored the various protests from each man. One by one he broke off with them, accepting future invitations and handing out his cell-phone number. 

I watched him, in awe of the way he managed to do business while making honest, personal connections at the same time, and all of it seeming just as effortless as breathing. What I had always felt stirred, put itself into words—that he was someone I could be proud of loving. Vain as it sounds, I had never met anyone who fit that bill. 

"You're something," was what I told him as we left the café, bunking arms and wandering without destination towards the center of Wellington.

"What?" he said, and laughed, looking at me from the corner of his eye.

"You just are." Pause. "Any plans?"

He squinted thoughtfully. "Meeting Barrie. Just to touch bases." He smiled. "I could do it on the phone, if you want to hang out."

"Nah. Go ahead. I have some shopping to do."

"Yeah?"

"Mm. The lone food products left in my refrigerator have already formed their own nation-state, refined agricultural techniques, and developed a crude form of picture writing. I should replace them with edible things before they discover bronze or something."

Laughing, he stopped in front of his car. "Agreed, agreed."

I fingered the keys in my pocket and tried to gauge how far I parked from the café.

"Hey," he said. "Pasta or bready stuff."

"Hm?"

Just before sliding into the car, he grinned. "My half of the groceries. Dinner later?"

"Um," I said. "Yeah." I smiled widely. "Absolutely."

 

I stood in front of the meat shelves at the local food market; brow furrowed for what felt like forty-five minutes. I watched little old ladies dart in front of me, snatch shiny red packets and disappear at lightning speed. Bewildered, I rang Sean's cell and told him where I was. 

He chuckled when I explained. "You want to cook? I figured we'd get takeout like usual." He paused. "Sounds like fun, though. I am kinda tired of Subway. Just get chicken breast. You like lemon pepper chicken?"

"Yeah, sure. Sounds good."

He rattled off a bunch of other ingredients—lemon juice, pepper, butter, flour and seasoned salt—and then told me to get whatever else I wanted besides.

"Mm. Sean?"

"Yeah?"

"What's rump roast?"

"It's rump. Surely you know of rump, Lijah."

"Shaddap, Samwise." I poked the squishy meat.

He laughed. "Want me to meet you at your place?"

The moment stretched and all at once I processed it—standing in a grocery store, on the phone with this man, making these plans. It was the sort of giddy happiness that made you laugh; that could make you choke on tears, if you let it. I chose the positive side, let the grin stretch my face until it hurt, until I knew he could hear it in my voice.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'll be home soon."

 

Dinner was laid out not so elegantly on the floor just in front of my Playstation. The far away glow of kitchen light was all we had besides the blue tint of the television screen. I sat Indian style, hands over my knees, one darting now and then to take something from my plate. He sat with his legs more to the side, weight balanced on one hand.

"Mm, yeah. I asked," Sean replied, swallowing before going on.

"Did he spill?" 

"Nothing that wasn't already in the faxes we got," came the half-annoyed reply.

I grumbled. "It's so vague."

"We could go there if you wanted."

"I guess." I poked a piece of chicken around my plate. "Still kind of attached to this apartment."

He looked thoughtful. After we finished I slipped outside to have a smoke. By the time I came back inside he was rinsing off dishes in the kitchen. I lingered in the doorway there, watching the light play off the simple movement of his arms and hands from the sink to the dishwasher. It was almost as if I wasn't there. As if I could just follow him throughout his life, watching him in quiet adoration from afar. Never enough.

I came up behind him and wrapped my arms around his middle. He glanced at me over his shoulder and I smiled, burrowing my nose and lips into the side of his neck. I splayed my palms over his belly. "Come to bed." His skin warmed. I grinned and flattened the stubby ends of my fingers against his thighs. 

He didn't respond. I slid my hands down his arms, interrupting the smooth dish rinsing rhythm he had going, smearing the warm water and soap suds until our fingers tangled around a dish. From the corner of my vision I saw his eyelashes mesh as their lids sank. Our bodies puzzle-pieced together nicely, bringing overwhelming warmth that touched my thoughts as well as my skin. All at once he turned. His hands came up, wet and sudsy, cupped my face, and he kissed me soundly.

"I want to stay," came the murmur against my lips. "But I don't want to...disappoint you."

"It's not rocket science," I chuckled, tugging him towards the back hallway. "Just do what you feel like doing." 

"Youth mentality," he mumbled, and I smirked, raising a what-was-that? eyebrow at him. He smiled winningly. I hooked a finger into the neckline of his shirt and hauled him over me as I fell onto my back across the bed. "Hey—" His elbows dug into the comforter on either side of my shoulders.

Nudging our mouths together, I hooked my forearms around his neck. He sighed and let a bit more of his body weight press down against me. I loved the feeling, loved being pinned by the warmth of him, being flooded with the faint smell of smoke still on my clothes and of pepper and lemon on his.

And kissing—kissing that was more an attempt to permanently fuse our parted mouths together than anything else. It turned desperate somewhere in the middle, became a pale imitation of what other parts of our bodies might do, and I was burning and rubbing up against him. 

"Sean." A stuttered gasp. He pulled away, all drowsy fallen eyelids and staggered breathing. His fingers combed the hair back from the fevered skin of my forehead. Eyes gone again, his face buried in my neck, lips touching, touching, then falling open, biting with all due softness and then sucking, bringing up blood until I squirmed. Hands bunching up my shirt, the double burn of his hands and my skin too hot to be natural, and then the material was gone, whipping my hair messily.

I wrapped my arms around him, all my thought bent on each kiss that he smeared across my neck and chest. Rushes of hot and cold and my fingers in his hair, twisting greedily. I closed my eyes when his mouth went up the side of my throat to find my earlobe where it captured the fleshy bulb and tongued it lightly between his lips. Another squirm, my feet pressing down the backs of his calves, and he bit down, bringing up a whimper in my throat.

Teeth and tongue against my shoulder, the trickle of wet, dragging kisses down the center of my chest. I watched him, watched the mesmerized way he lingered, watched the delicious parting of his mouth with each slow, tasting kiss. One of his large palms was pressed hard against my thigh, guiding the downward slide of his body. That hand slid up, squeezed the flat of my pelvis, and hesitated. 

Gently I put my hand down on his. "You can," I said. And then a whisper: "Please."

Permission granted. Nervously he sucked in his top lip and closed his fingers against the bulge there. The racing need to do something with it that I'd been trying very hard to ignore leapt up, tugging my attention brutally. As I kept pushing into his hand, he kept rubbing harder, and the simple friction dribbled relief to my muscles. The steady strength of his rhythm was good; and we could've finished right then and there and I wouldn't have complained. 

He stopped, released his top lip, and undid my jeans slowly. Once they were gone, he pressed my body under his gain, his tongue skidding softly along the skin just above my boxers. His hands strayed, pressing the expanse of my belly and chest, closing on my nipples with distracted pressure. I wasn't prepared for the spiky pleasure that touch brought; I whimpered and moved a bit and I swear he was grinning like a kid at Christmas who's just figured out how to work the toy he'd spent the entire morning putting together.

I saw him wetting his lips and his fingers finally went for my boxers. By now I was just warm, liquefied Elijah on the bed, reveling in the slow torture of being explored, and I could barely bring myself to say or do anything. But I didn't want him to think—

"You don't have to..." I trailed off.

"I'd like to," he said. His fingers peeled back the elastic waistband, kissing the revealed skin.

"You've never..." Was beginning to feel like a broken record.

"No, but." The material was off my legs and I felt the briefest stab of self-awareness before relaxing. "Thought about it." His eyes—previously averted—now shifted to my naked body. I burned under the intensity of the stare. "A lot." Fingers around my hips and thighs, finding the nearly invisible hair there, seeking out veins of heat and sweat that hide in the crevices where my clothing had been. 

His voice lulled me. I stroked the back of his neck with one hand, resisting the urge to squirm as he went about painting my thighs with his mouth. Wasn't used to the attention, wasn't prepared for the incredibly sensitive spot behind my knee being discovered. When my whole body jerked at a touch there, we both laughed. It was sort of silly—and then hot. And then silly again.

His hand around my aching cock finally and the strength of that palm and those fingers left nothing to be desired. He knew how to do this, that was for sure, and the real primary pleasure set in, dragging my attention to the spot between my legs. I was silent besides my breathing. He tested touches on every spot of me, switching speeds and angles like a man completely engrossed. My thighs spread; my feet gently ran along the backs of his thighs; my hips began to thrust into every fisting stroke. Heat settled and created damp on some parts of me, burned dry in others. 

Heart in my throat and he stopped, eliciting a groan from me. I was about to grab his hand and make him start again when I felt his breath on the blood-swollen awareness that was the head of my erection. I froze, thigh muscles clamping, remembering the very strange feeling of suddenly having something as wet and alive as a mouth anywhere near my cock. The smooth glide of his lips swept back and forth, tasting experimentally. His tongue lashed out and coated the crown with damp tongue. 

My brow lined with wrinkles; I slid my fingers up into his hair. My belly tensed and all at once, his mouth took me in. I felt shock, physical and otherwise, because he didn't stop until he had me almost entirely buried in the near-unnatural heat of his cheek. I muttered some oath, hips off the bed as he lifted away, licking his lips, expression unreadable. Using his hand to steady me led to his discovery that he could use his hand and his mouth (he'd explain years later, embarrassed but amused at his inexperience, that though he had gotten this attention himself regularly, it seemed a completely different thing from the other end).

From there it was quick. The damp fire of his mouth bobbed firmer with each stroke, the press of his first three fingers milking me slowly. I wasn't thinking, though, couldn't connect the experience with any greater meaning of us. I was too nervous, suddenly, about coming, felt the keen embarrassment that often happens just before. And hell, I was nervous for him. Was his jaw sore? Did I taste funny? 

I let him know I was getting close. He finished me efficiently with his hand, working the top half with a perfect angle that had me coming again and again over his brown fingers, toes curled, throat seizing around silent sobs. My muscles drained pleasantly of all tension. I relaxed; breathed his name. He fumbled for a towel from the stack that I'd tossed at the foot of the bed that afternoon. He bent to taste some from the head of my cock, tested it against his lip, and then wiped the rest off my belly and thighs and finally his hand. He laid his cheek on my chest, brought his arms in close to my sides, and closed his eyes. 

Nervous again, I pet the hair back from his forehead. "You okay?"

Slow dip of his eyelashes; a nod. He turned his mouth against my skin and pressed, testing his knuckles along my rib cage. He watched me. 

"Was it what you expected?" I couldn't help asking.

He grinned slowly, pushing his nose into the dip below my torso. "Much easier."

"Easy, am I?" I ran my fingers through his hair, feigning insult.

"I thought I'd feel...different. Initiated or something." He laughed.

"How do you feel?"

"Accomplished. I've been wanting to make you feel good for a long time now."

"You're still dressed," was my ingenious reply. I set about fixing that, wondered why going for his clothes seemed so strange still; but I forced myself to do it until it was done and he was in his underwear over me. I brought his body down on mine, wrapping him in my arms and legs until we were one tangled hot mess of parts. He felt so damned good there, pleasantly heavy on top of me. I stroked my fingers down the back of his neck, which made him tremble (made me smile), and the wide expanse of his back, thrilling at the difference in our build, loving that he was all firm expanses of muscle and softer spots. 

He moved to kiss me and then hesitated, glancing towards the bathroom. "Should I..."

I smirked and dragged him down, clamping our mouths together, tasting myself there on his bottom lip and not caring at all. "Nope." I went back to tracing the shape of his ears, neck, and shoulders, dividing my attention between that and plundering his mouth slowly with my tongue. And something about the kissing made me bold. Maybe it was the boundary just crossed, but—

My fingers smoothed down his thighs, pushed at the boxer-briefs. I nudged them down and used my knees and finally my feet to get them off his legs. He touched our bodies together and I felt the keen dig of his half-attentive cock burning against the crease of my thigh, bringing up the first real stab of rushed urgency in my body. Fuck me, god, please was on my lips, but I wouldn't bring it up. Kept reminding myself what the situation was. I had to be mature about it. Yeah. God.

Squeezed my hands into his hips and the edges of his backside—tried to be subtle about that, though I relished the way his whole body seemed to miss a beat when I got close. He seemed obsessed with my neck and ears; he kept returning there to bite, nibble, and kiss every inch of them. The flat of skin just below and behind my ear was one of the first places he discovered; when he brushed the tip of his nose along that spot, a moan tumbled before I could even control my reaction, and my whole right side rose off the bed. 

"Huh," I exhaled, and then laughed as he did it again, made my clench. His chuckle vibrated against my throat. 

"Mm," he hummed, and shuddered, rubbing himself against the inside of my thigh. His cheeks were a deep pink when I pushed back into him. I draped my legs around his hips. I watched his face, unprepared for this, wanting it but not knowing if we could just stumble into it without saying something. 

And then: lube, fuck, shit, do I have lube?

And then: wait, wait, fuck, who said we're gonna do this right now?

And then: fucking Christ he's huge, oh, shit, that's gonna sting, oh, fuck, yes...but wait wait wait!

Burning, I felt my body contract; greedy, three steps ahead of my brain. He was there, heavy hard hot over me, pressing and stroking, shaking slightly. I had my body wound around his and I wanted his cock inside me, wanted to feel the barrier between us broken. Hadn't done it in a year at least, didn't care, and didn't know if he knew what I wanted.

"Elijah, what..." His face hovered above mine.

"D'you want to—? I just need to get something."

"I—I don't know, is it okay, I mean..."

His fingers squeezed my inner thigh and I whimpered, taking his mouth wetly against mine. "God, yes."

"I'll get it," he said, and I could practically hear his thoughts racing.

"Nightstand drawer, the white tube," I said. The second I let him go I wanted him back.

He returned with the tube in hand, tumbling from his knees to bend over me, one hand digging into the mattress. I took it from him, kissed his throat, and spoke softly against his ear. "You okay with this?"

Pressing his mouth to my shoulder, he nodded. "Want to," he sighed. "Want to feel you."

Bringing my knees up slightly, I took his hand. "Fingers first, okay? It's been a while." I smiled and felt him smile. He fumbled with the tube and it seemed ages to take ages. The anticipation was equal parts nervousness and excitement. 

I guided his hand, positioned his fingers. And when his slippery touch finally took on a will of its own, stroking below my balls, I had to let go. The tip of his middle finger found the puckered entrance to my body. Couldn't lay still; hard to explain the way it first felt, that initial fingertip probing there; a precursor to the faint pain and incredible sensations that I knew would follow—deer in the headlights for just a second, the personal boundary of my body sweetly violated. And then that crawling, hot sensation that manifested itself in random spots all over from being touched there; was split between wanting more and being physically terrified of more because it would hurt. 

He worked the fingertip so slowly that he had me squirming—and when it finally popped past that circle of muscle and sunk in, I cried out. Warmth flooded, slippery and invasive, almost embarrassing, and I clung to his arms and he stopped.

"I'm hurting you," he mumbled, concerned, as my body clamped around his fingertip.

"Nono, you're...don't stop." I lifted up and rocked forward, pushing against him. He took the suggestion and sunk his finger all the way to the knuckle. Belly tight, I held my breath, sweat breaking out on my forehead and the back of my neck. "You can move them, just turn them like," and I stopped, because he moved; a second fingertip lined up with the first keeping me parted and smearing lube against the damp muscle, the first rotating slowly, bringing up the oddest warm shocks in my body. 

When he brushed against my prostate, I wasn't prepared, had forgotten what it felt like, and the pressure hurt along with feeling strangely satisfying, all at once electric and skittish down my legs. I sobbed, brought him down hard against me, and he stopped again.

"Did I..." He was panting.

"Yeah, just, softer there, careful," I gasped out.

He wriggled the second finger in with the first and I winced slightly, forcing my muscles to relax despite the burn of being stretched. And those fingers sunk and did their deliciously intrusive job, brought me to begging and whimpering levels of heat in seconds flat. Then a third and they curved all together, milking the suctiony clamp of my body which seemed made to hold him inside.

"Sean," I moaned, and I could feel the sweat on his back, my heels tapping the soft deposits just above his backside, my fingers digging sweaty tracks up his biceps. "Now, please."

He was dying with restraint and it was evident in everything, in the twitch of his muscles, in the way he was careful not to rub too much against me, in the silence. And again, the hesitation. "I don't want to hurt you..." He wasn't breathing right.

"Just go slow," I said, panting, sweaty, lost, wasn't even aware of the bed under me or the walls or the ceiling or the hour. I reached between us and guided his swollen erection to replace his fingers, and god, he was big, and thick. I closed my eyes, lifted higher, and his arms came around the backs of my knees, which were sweaty as all hell, and we slid as we touched, his elbows cupping my thighs. 

We folded together in a way and when he pushed forward, I froze with the sharp pain. It was fast, there and then fading into something else, once the tip of him pushed past muscle. My mouth hung open, beyond making sounds, and I trembled and gave in, let it happen. The stretch played itself out for a long minute until he was buried inside me, belly heaving against the backs of my thighs. He was sobbing softly, throat clenched, and I opened my eyes to see him. The tight pleasure sketched across his features made me throb and in minutes I was hard again, surging against his stomach.

He seemed to come back to himself and leaned over me, kissing my mouth with trembling lips. "Lijah," came the loving sigh, and he rocked slowly forward, bringing friction. "Is that okay?"

I was too wrapped up in breathing and shaking and the paralyzing heat that him being buried inside me brought to answer right away. I garbled some reply, then found my fingers wrapping around the slick skin of his backside, pulling him in, urging him to move. "So good," fell from my lips. "Yes."

And once we started to move his concerns fell away. Every minute of it was slow, deep, and careful. It threatened to overwhelm us, and if we were to go any faster—. I held him close against me despite the damp all over. The blanket left harsh imprints on my back. My legs curled gradually inward the faster he went. My erection bobbed against his stomach. The scattered moments during which he brushed my prostate wrung cries from my throat.

Not wanting to distract him, I wrapped my own fist around my cock and began stroking in time. The tip dribbled against the hair on his stomach, leaving wet marks. I flushed with the sight.

He shifted angles, rearranged my legs, and then resumed the steady pump of my body. His body was shaking under my hands and between my knees. I closed my eyes and with my free hand caressed his cheek, pressed kisses all over his face. My skin was so sensitized that even the brush of the blanket made me shiver.

Almost beyond my attention I felt my balls constrict. I stopped, bit my lip, and whimpered. "Sean, I'm—" He stopped and I pulled him in hard, held him still and deep inside me as I came, crying out, wet coming splattery over my hand and our bellies. The feeling kept rolling, wouldn't stop tearing me apart and I was gasping along with it, holy fucking shit it just keeps coming. When it finally slowed I was putty, warmed and pummeled and spread wide open and he was still moving, slow and steady rocks of his pelvis, there and then gone and then there; deep, pushing, groaning.

So fucking good, so weird that he was still thrusting. Never, ever had that so—and his hair, damp and wavy flat against his forehead, and the sweat trickling at his temples, and his pulse going a hundred miles an hour at the hollow of his throat—overwhelming, him him him him and oh, god, yes.

His hands, hot and shaking, cupping my face, kissing my mouth messily, as his motion began to start and stop and it didn't matter because it felt fucking fantastic. I cupped his back, pet his shoulders, smoothed the hair from his face.

"Elijah."

"Yeah." I watched the muscles in his throat tense.

"Oh, God..." He bent his face to the bed above my shoulder, moaned, and pulled out slowly...fell back in hard, once, fast, made me gasp. My nerve endings had fired so much that I was nothing more than a victim to them at this point, would've probably crumpled to the bed if his arms and body weren't pushing me upright, so full of his motion that I couldn't fathom it ending. But he was tensing and getting close and harshly pushing out and sucking air back in through pursed lips. Curled my fingers around his ears, tickling the skin down the back of his neck, thumbs pressing the wildly dangerous jackhammer of his heartbeat. 

He stopped altogether. He shook; he kissed me; he ducked his face against my throat and worked up to a final, frantic crescendo. He let go with spectacular silence. As he came he thrust hard again and again and the gush of warmth felt strange, but I was holding him when he finally let the sobs come as the orgasm rode its wobbly path to finishing. 

The seconds were measured in heartbeats. Everything was slow (blood through thick veins), coming in spicy sharp time. He stayed there inside me, shaking still, his breath coming in heavy rushes against my neck. My fingers were gripping his neck and his back. And then he gathered the strength to move. His face touched mine, our noses brushed, our lips whispered past each other.

"Oh my god," he breathed, and I could feel his grin. He was laughing.

I smiled lazily, kissing him, my body all but dead weight around me. "Mmm."

"Are you okay?" Sean was coming back to himself. His eyes scanned my face.

"Won't be able to walk for about a week, but," I replied, snickering.

"I did hurt you," he said, by way of protest.

"It always hurts a little," I explained. "That's part of it."

"But was it okay, I mean, besides that?" he asked.

I stared at him and then dissolved into weak laughter. "Christ, Seanie." That was probably the most amazing sex I've ever had.

He raised an eyebrow. "So I've been batting for the wrong team?"

The look on his face was so blank that it was hysterical. I cracked up again, becoming vaguely aware in the back of my head of the sticky wetness everywhere on and between us. "Let's rinse off, okay? And, ah, get a new blanket."

"You want me to stand after that?" he countered, grinning.

"It's either that or become glued to each other and the bed."

"Point." He held onto me for a second and very carefully pulled out. I shuddered and instantly hated the emptiness. He rolled onto his knees and pulled me up. Making a face at the damp mess everywhere, he tugged me, limping into the bathroom and seconds later we were under the shower's spray.

The lights in the bathroom were of low wattage so the light wasn't particularly bright. I watched the water stream down his body amidst plumes of steam. He stepped back, gave me a turn under the water. I was sore as hell already, standing kind of funny and not flat on both feet at once. I knew I wouldn't be able to sit straight for a while. He came up behind me, disturbing the flow of water, and wrapped his arms around my waist. 

"Are you sure you're okay?"

I tilted my drenched head away from the water, laid it back against his shoulder. "I'm fine." I smiled. "You go change the bed, okay? I'll finish cleaning up."

He kissed my neck decisively and then slid from the shower. I finished washing off, used the toilet, and then rinsed off again discretely. I found a towel and tucked it around my waist. In the bedroom he was adjusting a pair of shorts around his waist and rubbing a towel through his hair.

And for the first time I actually wondered what being with me was doing to the structure of his mind, to the way he saw himself, to his whole past. I slid onto the bed and took him from his repetitive hair-drying motion and curled my arms around him.

"How do you feel?" I asked, which was the best thing I could come up with at the time.

"Tired," he laughed, reclining against the pillows with me.

"No, I mean. You know. In general." I shifted farther over his chest, bringing up the fresh blanket around us.

He was quiet initially. His right hand looped against my hair, stroking the wet strands free of tangle. He switched us around a little, curled his arm around my side and pressed his head up under my chin. I held him.

"I feel at home," he said in a hushed voice, just before falling asleep.

I let myself cry just a few tears before joining him.

 

The next day we bummed around the house, continuing to pack. We sorted the usual barrage of faxes and voice mails from the team. Sean spent the morning on and off the phone with Ali and Christine (to a lesser degree). I made a point of not asking how the conversation with Christine went.

We noticed the red blip on my private answering machine going and were treated to several embarrassingly suggestive voice mails left by Dom and Billy as to what Sean and me were up to. They said they were having fun in Glasgow visiting with Billy's family and were on their way towards Manchester to give Dom's relations a quick hello before coming back to New Zealand.

We went out for lunch, which was a brief affair. A quick stop off to touch bases with Peter and Fran turned into an entire afternoon of discussion and dialogue reworking that occupied us until evening, when we gave in and went out for dinner. 

I caught Sean hiding grins at the way I couldn't walk straight and once I convinced him that yes, that does happen, and yes, he should take it as a compliment, he allowed himself the humor. 

Being in public and unable to touch each other was a very tiny, unavoidable torment that I figured we should get used to right away. By the time we got home from the restaurant and were safe behind locked doors, though, I had my hands on him, in his hair and on his arms, pushing and pulling outerwear off. 

We stumbled near the kitchen, rerouted our path to the living room, and collapsed onto the couch with me straddling his lap. We kissed hungrily for minutes on end and I could taste the sharp sauce from the dinner he'd had. His hands, so much less hesitant now, squeezed the seat of my jeans and pulled me in; his mouth, quicker, skimmed my jaw.

What had really gotten amazing was the kissing; the open-mouthed searching out the corners and doing anything and everything to get our lips, tongue, and teeth together thing we had down to a science. The more erotic the kisses the more I wanted, and it was a sauna in record time under my clothes.

And there was the softer side, which was the underbelly of it. The way it felt to be possessively held by him, so tight and so close that at times I couldn't breathe (and was willing to give that up just to stay there). The way it got when the kisses slowed down but were still just as hot; the slow play of tongues and parted lips between pressed rows of teeth. His mouth on my eyelids, the tip of my nose, the spot just above my upper lip. The fantastic pleasure that came from combing my fingers through his hair from forehead to the back of his neck; and more importantly, watching his eyes close and his lips quirk in the most gentle of smiles as I did it. The way he'd stay still with that patient expression of complete rapture and let me kiss every inch of his face and neck. And the way it felt after such a lengthy exploration when I'd find his mouth and he'd come to life and kiss me senseless.

On my knees between his thighs and he went to switch off the end table lamp. I took his wrist. "No need..."

And though he was red in the face and I knew he was embarrassed over his shape, I needed him to know that it didn't matter to me. He let his arm fall, let me have him there on the couch under my mouth and hands illuminated by the faintly hypnotic light around us. As he squirmed and whimpered and overheated I thought of nothing but doing it right.

In bed later he returned the favor and it was my turn to turn to jelly; and I was so much more relaxed this time that I was able to enjoy it with abandon. Wasn't thinking about anything but the fact that I had him and he had me. And when we fell asleep after, there were smiles instead of tears.

 

At the end of our first vacation week—on the morning of Dom and Billy's return—the sun shone bright as hell through blinds we'd forgotten (in our frantic need to touch each other) to close. I let it scald my eyelids until it became uncomfortable. Squinting, with the bed creaking under me, I looked around—and started, because Sean was propped on one elbow next to me, watching me.

I put a hand up to block the glare and scrunched up my face at him. He smiled, leaned in and kissed the corner of my mouth and lingered there, the backs of his knuckles on my cheek. "Morning."

Still startled by how close he was I smiled back, wondering what was going through his head but content to go on watching him watch me all day if he wanted. He looked away for a second and, figuring that was that, I stirred and moved to crawl out from under the blankets. His hand, which had been lying against my chest, tightened and held me. "What?" was on my lips, but the word just settled for shaping them. I scanned his face quizzically.

"I love you..." 

The cars that made up my train of thought screeched and slammed one into the other, all the way down the line, resulting in a pile-up. And those words, and his face, and the angle of the light, and my right leg half out of the warmth of the blankets—a memory branded too well to ever fade.

My silence wasn't the best reply, but I found I couldn't string syllables much less words together. Had I expected it? Before things started, sure. But for days it had been simply reveling in each other until we couldn't move—a physical and mental thing. Aside from that, I hadn't thought about those three little words in quite a while.

I closed my eyes and leaned up and kissed him. He was shaking like a leaf. How long had he watched me sleep? How long had it taken him to screw up the courage to say it? It should have been me saying it first.

And God help me but I was having trouble spitting the words back, even though every part of me felt just the same way. Hearing that pass between us once was powerful and maybe I didn't feel worthy saying it a second time. Or maybe I was just a chicken shit; maybe I just wasn't brave. Say it, fucker, I hissed silently at myself.

"I love you, too, Sean." No matter that it came out more like "Ilovey'tooSean" and so much a whisper that I wasn't sure he heard. But there was something therapeutic about saying it and once I did, it felt okay. I felt stronger for it. And so I said it again in between sunlit kisses and again, each time emotion bending the words a little more, making them honest.

"Hey," I sighed softly when I felt his tears on my cheeks—were they mine or his?—and the thought that he was upset bothered me so much—I felt so connected to the solution or the perpetuation of his sadness—that there was no doubt I was very much in love. It hurt, knowing that, the exposure to what being in love meant, like sharing a very important artery (heart to heart) with someone, constantly worried over how every little thing you did would affect them.

"I'm sorry," he murmured, snuffling his sinuses clear and petting my hair back. "I wasn't going to bring it up. I didn't want you to have to say it back in case you—"

"That's bull, you know I do—"

"—weren't ready to say it."

"Oh," I said, giving a watery smile.

We were bathed in light now, his hair sticking up and his shoulders almond brown under my searching fingers. 

That the world outside might be the same was impossible. The fact that we had to get up, had to meet Bill and Dom, had appointments practically every day for the rest of the vacation—no. 

Like all young guys in love, I expected the world to stop for me. I was in love; and that only happened to everyone else and to straight people and to fictional characters on the page and on the screen. I was in love; and some of those songs were true, you know? I was in love; and suddenly no one but Sean and I could understand. It was like being let in on a big secret, but giving up part of the outside world in return. And the important part is that you don't care; you'll give up that part and hell, you'd give up more. 

It was a mixture of stupidity and intelligence—because it was a gamble. And that's why people still do it. And what's why I embraced it. And that's why I was willing to fight, to forgive, and to try. 

I was gone; I had come back. He saw it in my eyes. 

And after that day, there was no ignoring it.

 

Bottles, shrugged off outerwear, and half-empty bowls of snack food dominated the landscape of Sean's den that evening. Music that changed depending on who managed to sneak a disc in when Sean wasn't looking came at a pleasant background-noise level from the stereo. It was just us four hobbits, but the door had been open all day—Orli had already drifted through and back on out. 

Sean was taking me through the motions of the Samba ("Sounds like a cocktail," I'd said. "Everything sounds like a cocktail to you, Elijah," he'd replied) with an amused grace that set my skin on fire.

"So there's the back and the forward movement and it's basically like that. You just move around a lot repeating it," he explained, one hand on my upper back, the other clasping my hand.

I paused. "Right." Pause. "So."

"Wait for the music," he said, and then nodded and brought us into motion on the first beat of the music. "Step back and slide your right foot, weight on the right leg." I fumbled and he laughed and steadied me. "No, no, don't move your left foot." He waited for the beat to come back around and we started again.

The technical explanation of the dance didn't go so far in teaching success, but the simple motion he set for us was a rhythm I had no trouble following. And once I'd tamed the flow of it we were flying around the den on rapid feet, left tap up-down and again. Right leg off the floor, left leg off the floor, reversed when the lead switched and went backwards.

I'd run the tempo up and force him around furniture and through the kitchen and back again and he'd dart in to muffle his laughter against my sweater. "Dizzy," I admitted softly, falling into his arms in front of the stereo. 

He hummed and swayed me back and forth, chin on my hair, palms spread across my back and I moved with him, closing my eyes. It was more like being rocked than anything else and it barely registered that we were slow dancing to some softer thing that'd come up on the CD. Sleepy and warm, I lifted my head and pressed our foreheads together.

"Where're Bill and Dom?" I asked, though I didn't really care.

"Probably making out in my basement," Sean said with a lofty sigh that made me giggle. "I'm serious," he added, laughing. "Sent Bill down there for more wine and Dom said 'I'll help' and of course that'll be the last we'll see of them for a while. You were outside smoking with Orli." 

"Think what they had was contagious?" I asked, eyebrows a-waggle. Sean spun me suddenly and I suppressed a squeak just in time for him to reign me back in. He was looking at me funny. 

"What?"

"You know," I said, leaning in and nuzzling his neck just above the collar of his shirt. "The boy on boy touchy mmmm..." I sunk my teeth against the vein that throbbed along the side of his throat. He tensed and then sighed, rubbing the back of my head.

"Ahh," he said. "No, I don't think—quit it, or I—no. It's different with them. It's just an extension of what they already were. We're..." And he seemed to be unsure of the topic.

"Yeah?" I prodded, lifting my head from the busy snogging of his neck.

"I don't know," he said quietly. "But I know it's different."

"Okay," I accepted, nodding. "I mean, yeah. It isn't the same."

Smiling, he swept me into a twirl around the couch. I curled my forearms around his neck and tipped myself back until we were bent over the top of the couch, inches from tumbling over and onto the cushions below. He laughed and held us up and craned his neck to catch my lips with his.

"Shall I get the popcorn?"

Startled in the middle of an attempt to get upright, we ended up falling headfirst onto the couch cushions. Scrambling and sitting up and getting our legs untangled took some effort. Billy and Dom came into view above the back of the couch and I grumbled, falling back down, sitting up on my knees. Sean's face was a shade of red I'd only seen it go during lovemaking.

"Don't you two have some lewd sex acts to further indulge yourselves in?" I said.

"Mmm," Dom hummed, turning to Billy. "I think we covered everything on tonight's list."

"You want we should mop the basement?" Billy tacked on.

Sean's red cheeks gained a tint of purple. "Out!" He grinned in my direction, but kept talking in theirs. "You've already drunk my liquor cabinet dry."

"I resemble that remark," Dom tossed over his shoulder as he and Billy got into their jackets.

"That was original," Billy sniffed at Dom, earning a swift punch to the arm.

"Elijah. Day out with us tomorrow, yeah?"

I glanced at Sean. "We plan anything?"

Sean chewed his bottom lip and then shook his head. "Don't think so. The moving people are coming with boxes and to size up things for the trucks. The houses'll take longer to move, so..."

"Alright, cool. Yeah, Dom. Gimme a call, let me know, yada."

Alone finally, his hands curled down my back and drew me into his lap. A fluttery, unstoppable feeling filled my chest as we kissed. The next glance at his eyes told a story by way of passion-darkened colors and low-hanging lashes; and the world outside that tiny space once again became inconsequential.

 

Our "day out" became the first of many Christmas shopping trips Dom and Bill would drag me on. Yeah, it had to be done, and I wasn't really in the mood for it, even though my mind was spinning with thoughts of what to get Sean. I pushed that to the back of my head and shopped for the family first, lacing gifts for my mom and Hannah and Zach and various LA friends with New Zealand-ish bits and bobs thrown in. 

While Billy milled around in the sporting goods store, Dom and me bumped each other around a music store across the way. After several minutes of silence broken only by his "subtle" suggestions about which CDs he'd like, he finally brought up Sean.

"So," was the genius beginning of his prod.

"So," I said.

"How're things?"

"Things are spiffy," I said, grinning stupidly.

"Well, yes, the fluorescent glow you're casting has killed several stray animals since we left your place," he intoned. "So I figured you had a shagging good time."

I leaned over the stacks, bringing us closer, and dropped my voice. "It's serious shit."

"Yeah?" Dom replied, thumbing through a stack of Beatles stuff.

"We've been, well, you know, over and over... And talking about lots of things. Fuck, Dom, it's," I sighed. "Says he loves me."

Dom's face froze, animated slowly a heartbeat later by elevated eyebrows. "And...?"

I almost couldn't say it. It was like the day Sean'd said it, the way it felt almost impossible to form those words to someone who'd never heard them before. And then there was that part where it just felt plainly stupid and girly; almost every way of expressing the way I felt had seemed that way to me. Made me think for a while there that chicks really got the point, made me regret not having more girl friends.

"I love him too," I spat finally, looking down at the plastic wash of colors.

Something uncomfortable passed over Dom's face. He noisily dropped a CD into its slot and wandered further down the aisle. I followed, pulse racing merely from the excitement of telling someone.

"This is fucked up," he said, squinting at me. Was he annoyed? I hadn't expected...but then, he had grounds. "I mean, d'you realize what you're up to? This guy, this awesome guy, man, he's got a family. You—" He sighed. "Look, I know it's mutual. It's not like you set out to seduce the bloke. But you talk like there's gonna be big changes because of it and—"

"So what the fuck do I do? Just forget about it?" I followed him as he exited the store hastily, taking us away from eyes that had begun to notice us.

"I don't know," Dom said flatly, slowing his pace. "But this just feels all wrong."

"Of course it is. Christ, Dom. But I've never...I mean, in my whole life, I've never had this and even though there's all this shit attached it...it feels so good, man. And standing here with you, sure, I can be rational and all that, but when I see him. Or when he looks me in the eye, or when he's...touching...me. It all goes to hell."

In front of the sporting goods store, we stopped. Dom continued to watch my face.

"But can you handle it? What if he tells you he wants to keep you and him on the side, eh? And stay with her for convenience's sake."

My stomach did a nasty flop. "I'd deal. If he loves me, and he has to, because Sean is not the type to just say that shit, and I love him, which I do, then we'll work it out. I'm the odd man out. I have to settle. And I will."

"You shouldn't have to fucking settle," Dom countered, hands flopping. "You're a young guy, you deserve to be free and enjoy the things you do and be open about the people you're with."

"When I said settle, Dominic, I didn't mean settle for him. I mean settle for the situation. What, just because I'm young my relationships have to be simple? I don't buy that, man. And that's bullshit, coming from you. You and Billy can't be fucking open, either, so what the—"

"Don't you bring me and Bill into this," he shot back, the first dash of real annoyance coming across his face.

"Why not? Just because Billy isn't with someone? If Billy had a girlfriend back home or, hell, even here, would that change it? Would you step down?" I got up in his face, forcing his eyes to connect with mine. His expression faltered.

He cleared his throat and deflated a little, dropping his gaze. "No," he admitted, clarity etching his features. "No. I wouldn't be able to."

"Thank you," I said, sighing with relief, although what kind of relief I couldn't say.

"It just seems so much worse, with Chris and Ali being as, well, Chris and Ali as they are," he said, eyes distracted and scanning the storefront for Billy. 

"We'll talk about it. We'll make it something that can be handled," I said, unsure of whether I was comforting myself or reassuring Dom. 

Calmer, Dom nodded. "Just be careful, yeah? And if you need a place to crash and don't wanna be alone—"

"I know, I know," I replied, throwing an arm around him and guiding us into the store towards Billy, who was at the checkout counter. "Thanks."

 

Head in his lap some nights later, with his fingers combing my hair. I hadn't mentioned the words me and Dom'd had, didn't see the point of bringing Sean into it. I wondered if they had said anything to him and he was doing me the same service. But I guess it didn't matter much to me, because I didn't ask him. Instead we were having one of our family talks.

"I don't know," I was saying. "What's worse, you think? The way your mom was at home when you were a kid, or my dad just never being there at all? In general."

His chest filled with breath and then emptied slowly, fingers pausing near the back of my neck. "I think it's equally wrong. Sure, there are gradations and all, but in the end, I think it brings about the same kinds of problems."

I closed my eyes. "Was it really bad for you?"

Another breath; pause. "In combination with the pressure? With the struggling to be myself while becoming a marketable entity for someone else's profit at the same time? It was hard at times." He gently cupped a hand over my neck, and my skin burned in response. "But there were plenty of great times, too. And once I started really studying acting, it only got better. I lost that owned feeling. I had power over what I was doing and how I was doing it."

My stomach churned. He'd already passed a crossroads that still had its fingers clamped around my ankle. But in a way, and in the deepest part of me, it connected us; more than even the fresh, new feeling of love. We shared something. Our similar pasts meant something. At different points, maybe, but on the same plane. And God, when the hell had I started thinking like this? Was he just rubbing off on me?

"Are you still nervous? About filming," he said. "You haven't said anything in a while..."

Figuring he was taking advantage of the question and answer session, I smiled. "I'm okay. We've got a few months under our belt. It's easier now." I rolled over slowly and his hands readjusted, one settling on my shirt and the other near my forehead. "I've been a tad distracted lately," I added, pulling a boyish face up at him.

"Is that good or bad?" he asked, eyebrows up.

I shifted his hand to my mouth and kissed the soft, fleshy creases. "Mm, good." His palm came to rest on my cheek. 

He broke the silence a pregnant minute later. "You know, when I asked Christine to marry me, I was thinking one thing. Besides the fact that she was beautiful and exactly what I wanted. I was thinking that I could do it right. I could start off fresh, clean, do something that would last...would work. And that our children would always know that, would never suffer from anything. I'd perfect what my parents just couldn't. Or wouldn't," he sighed, "hell, I don't know."

I remained silent.

"And it was perfect for a lot of years," he continued, eyes softly wandering the ceiling on some kind of self-appointed journey. Searching for what I couldn't even begin to guess. "It all clicked. Every decision we made as husband and wife, as parents, as business partners, it all went off without a hitch. And I was so happy. I just floated from movie to side project with the biggest grin on my face. But from the minute...the minute...I accepted this role, God. It was like something dropped out from under us. Or we lost something, or—. Even before I got fitted for my damned wig it was like an invisible line had been crossed. And there was no going back over it." He breathed what would've been a soft laugh and looked at me. "Then along comes you. Sunglasses," he began, and I laughed right away and he shifted around on the couch, "that ugly jacket, those God awful shoes..."

"Hey! Those were fantastic shoes."

"Mm," he hushed me, and grinned. "And those clove cigarettes, which stink to high Heaven." I made a face and in response his slowly changed, softened. "And those huge eyes. And that soft mouth." His fingertips grazed my lips. "And that giggle. And the look you get in your eyes when you play with Ali..."

I absorbed his words with some amount of hesitance; they felt disgustingly good.

"She loved you from the minute she saw you, you know. Almost made me jealous." His eyes crinkled playfully. 

Unable to stay still—feeling that itch to move—I scooted up and straddled his lap, hooking my arms around his neck and pressing our foreheads together. "You're very bad for my ego, Seanie."

"You don't get credit for half the things you are," he said, almost too seriously. "I know what it's like. To be on the end of that and to fail to act when I was on the other side." He drew back, eyeing me. "It's a lot of fun for you, and you're not any less into that than you should be. But you've got something ageless in you and it just...it molds a lot of the things you do. And I'm not quite sure if anyone has noticed yet. I may have a bit of an ego myself, claiming that discovery."

My throat was tight and burning. I wasn't near tears, but the thought seemed to fit and I was tempted to let it happen. It was always okay to cry in front of Sean. I settled for his mouth on mine and the loving cling of his arms around my back.

"You never finished the story," I said softly.

He paused. "And then it's a parade of cliches, little Hobbit. I couldn't...I shouldn't...I'm not. When I knew damned well I was. I am. So new. So strange. So absolutely freakin' perfect." Strong, hot fingers up my back. 

Wanted him to say something important. Wanted his words to defeat everything I felt powerless against.

His voice was very small and stuck in his throat when next he spoke. "And I don't understand. And I don't know what's going to happen." His top lip trembled and, self-consciously, he sucked it inward. His eyes were liquid, just one step away from tears. "But I'm in this. We're in this." His fingers gathered up my hands. "I can't make you any promises. I can't give you a timetable or a play-by-play. Hell, I don't even think I know enough about this to be any kind of judge. But I want it to work. I want it to be something. And even if I can never muster up the courage tell her why, and even if it's a better idea for us to just sit on this for now. You're where I want to be, Elijah. Do you...do you...?"

If I spoke or opened my eyes I would be crying. So I clamped down on both breathing and vocalization, mouth crumpling with the effort, eyes squeezed tight. I nodded—urgent, short, close to his face. His wide eyes passed over mine and I could feel them. It forced me to look back and the moment I saw them, gigantic and softly leaking tears, I lost it. My chest seized and I sunk forward, laying my face against his neck, letting the tiny sobs shake my shoulders. 

"I'm so scared." Words from my lips before I could think; another cliché to add to my impressively long list; so honest that I felt wounded once it was spoken. And I realized I had wanted to say that for a very long time. I hadn't even been able to say it to myself.

"Me too," he sighed shakily, tears still tipping past his eyelashes.

"How can we do this? How can we...it's..." Chest heaving, panic rising again, and his hands were there, gripping the back of my neck, pressing my face.

"I don't know," he admitted, just as frightened as I was despite his ability to comfort us both at the same time. "But I can't do anything else. I can't pretend. I can't keep hurting everyone. And, God, have I been hurting her."

"I know that, I've been—" Telling Dom and Billy that for weeks. "I just can't even picture her knowing and hating you. Or me, Christ, for that matter."

"Either way, it's gotta happen," he pointed out, ten types of Samwise practical. "So we do it, right? Or," he drew out the word, catching my eye again, "we step back. If we're not sure. We can do that. You know that, right? We can just sit still for a while."

"No, no, I'm sure—"

"What if something changes for you, Lighe? Could you be honest and tell me?"

"Yes," I said immediately. I knew with all my being that if I was going to take part in the breaking up of a marriage that I would never compound that with my own dishonesty. I wasn't a fucking liar and I knew what I felt. He had to know that. "If I can't be honest with you, I can't be honest with anyone, dude."

His fingers were on my cheeks, drying them like so many months before when I'd been a drunken, stupid mess on his bathroom floor. "We're doing this."

"We're doing it," I repeated, snuffling my nose clear.

Overheated from crying and our closeness, I flopped off his lap and onto the cool softness of the couch. I draped my legs over his thighs and closed my eyes. "'M'sleep." I laughed and sniffled at the same time. "Been a long fuckin' day." He stroked my knees briefly and, with a smile on his face, left me to my trembling silence.

 

The second week passed in a blur; when we weren't meeting for costume tweaks or clocking hours at the gym, Dom, Billy, and Orli kept us busy, dragging us to plays and clubs, citing this or that theme or plot point or drink specialty that we just had to experience. A lot more Christmas shopping, too, though most of my gifts ended up being ordered online anyway.

We surfed a lot, despite Sean's complaint that his feet preferred dry land. I could see in his eyes that a part of him liked the rush and liked sharing it with us more than he'd ever admit. Me? Well, hell, I was just more concerned with bumming a wet suit than anything else—I'd been cheap and never bought my own. I was okay at surfing, had done it here and there (what California kid hadn't), but it wasn't instinctual for me. Billy seemed to be taking off with it, and Dom determinedly rushed after in his wake.

Barbecues came second to surfing, particularly during the third week when the weather was pleasant and clear. Suggestions floated around to go abroad; but I think we were still too in love with New Zealand. And as Kiran put it, "Who takes a vacation from a vacation?"

The excitement over what Sean and I had going was tamed in those weeks, I think, in a way that was really necessary. When we were alone it was one thing but we both agreed that it was important to put things in perspective otherwise; life was still the same and we had to keep on doing what we had to do. So I picked my ass off the couch and forced myself to call home, call my agent, and try and read some more of the books. Once I spread my effort around to those kinds of things and Sean, it all seemed manageable and not so huge.

His Christmas gift (which turned out surprisingly easy to decide on) arrived sometime during that week and I begged one of the art crew to wrap it for me. Said, "Bless you!" to the girl when I sneaked down to the second floor of the WETA building to smuggle it out from her.

Mixed feelings about the weeks going by so fast. On the one hand I loved the free time. I enjoyed walking around feeling awake and rested, enjoyed only glancing at the script once a day instead of eight times, enjoyed having nothing to do. 

On the other I missed doing my work. I missed the feeling of standing in the middle of a converted parking lot, weighed down by the wool costume that smelled and would always smell like Frodo to me. Surrounded by a crowd that was simultaneously focused on my every delivery and yet seemed to do its own thing (makeup touches, voice coaches yelling at us, Andy coughing like crazy and wincing with every swallow). I missed the helicopter rides and waking up to cold morning air and Sean with Sam's curls in his eyes, a book tucked in his pocket and two cups of coffee in his sturdy hands.

And, yeah, avoiding the Christine coming back part. But I missed Ali like mad. Hadn't figured that having a kid around would be so much fun or that I'd get used to it so fast. The sparkle she put in Sean's eyes never failed to take my mind away from anything and everything and put it right between them. I was beginning to miss witnessing that dynamic in my every-day life.

But overall things were coming together—life, New Zealand, the movie, my feelings for Sean, my friendships with everyone else. Even my mom and I were having better conversation. Once or twice she hinted that she could tell just by talking to me over the fuzzy transatlantic connection that I had changed. I couldn't even approach telling her the truth, but just hearing her say that validated something deep inside me.

As we got closer to the holidays, various cast members that'd gone home started to wander back. Viggo, tailing his son Henry, came shuffling into the scripting office in Wellington, snagged some water from the cooler in the corner (with his script and sword, one under each arm), and flopped down. The next time I saw him was at one of Orli's barbecues. He used the attendance of cast and crew to bring everyone up to speed on what he'd done with his time off. John and Bean followed suit.

To our surprise, the hobbits' relocation was put off. Instead of moving right after the New Year, we would be moving in mid-to-late January with leanings as far as maybe the first week of February. They hadn't predicted the rush of business and the delay in return of certain crew. What made up for it was the news that I would be getting a house rather than an apartment—which was a possibility that hadn't crossed my mind. ("A house?" I'd said to Dom. "What'd I need a house for?" He'd shot back, "Um, parties. And shagging. Have you regressed or something?")

I was caught up in the rushed, slightly surreal life I found myself living. And I felt good: mentally, emotionally, physically, all that. So there I was on the night before the morning Chris and Ali were slated to arrive, fully prepared to get Sean through whatever the hell was going to happen and on the flip side fully prepared to wait. 

 

We didn't even bother with pajamas after showering that night. Sean, a little tired, sprawled out stomach-down on my bed. I clambered on top of him playfully, lining up our bodies and massaging my fingers hard into the packed muscle on either side of his shoulder blades. I discovered the mole that made its home to the left side of the dip between those ridges. I went on until he was warm and soft and then lay gently down against him; my belly spooned against his back and my lips exploring the width of his shoulders and back. I lost track of time, didn't worry about the possible repetitiveness of my kisses. 

By the time I got back to the curve of his jaw, he was wearing a silky smile. "Mmm. I could get used to this," he said, laughing.

"Are we spoiled already?" I drawled against the back of his neck, placing a decisive love bite against the smooth flesh. He tensed and chuckled, brushing off the comment.

I was hot against the curve of his backside. I lingered over his back again, rubbing and kissing, and then curled our body's shapes together, my arms along his outstretched arms, my legs on the inside of his flanking and pushing them apart, my torso tucked dip to rise with his. I flexed my pelvis out of the basic need for friction. A soft shiver went through him. Putting weight on his knees, he lifted his bottom half slightly into me. I closed my eyes, my cheek burning against his.

"Does it hurt?" he asked quietly, lifting his cheek even further along mine.

"Well...yeah. But it's the good kind. And after a few minutes not at all." I sighed, hot, as he gently flexed his body into mine again. "You want to..."

"Ahh," he drawled, hesitating almost half-jokingly (the other half was nervousness). "Mm," he hummed, and his breathing changed. "Go slow."

Excitement tumbled through me, causing shivers. Strange how the thought hadn't even occurred until tonight. Didn't matter; I was leaning over and fumbling for the lube and praying that I wouldn't fuck up. I slid down his body, dragging the tip of my tongue directly down the column of his spine. I gently rubbed the fleshy deposits at the base of his back and then stroked my fingers along the firm rise of his buttocks. His teeth clenched—body followed—and he shifted around anxiously. 

When I moved to part him with my fingers, he stiffened. "Just...don't bother... I mean, all at once. Please. I—" 

"You sure?" I gently ran my thumbs along the warmth under them.

He nodded. My movement interrupted the gesture. I slicked my fingers with the lube, warming it between them. Everything I did seemed unprofessional and juvenile to my mind, but I kept on. I coated myself with a few quick strokes. The bed creaked in reply as I came forward on my knees, pushing up between him and rubbing myself slowly up and then down. A fine misty heat sprung up along the skin of his back and red spoiled the nape of his neck. He turned his face against the pillow there and exhaled.

I focused the press against him, there, finally, wrist turning circles as I worked the tip of my cock against him, only the faintest bit of give my reward. I knew I was going to hurt him, didn't like the idea, but the tightness was so inviting, and I also knew that it would stretch. Oh, god, yes, it would stretch so slow and so hot and his body would—

Drawing myself up I let my weight do the work, and when the tip slid in past that unwilling clench of muscle, I bit down to stifle the pressure that rose in my throat. He tensed, his shoulders bunching, fingers curled up tight. I muttered something encouraging. I stroked his hips, pleading silently for patience, for just a few seconds, oh god, so tight. The inside of his body was just slightly more damp than sweaty skin, was throbbing hot, and gripped me in a way that felt almost as if it were trying to swallow me and push me out at the same time.

When his arms relaxed, I craned my body over his, one hand falling to the bed (creak) and the other gripping the headboard for leverage (groan). I gently fell forward into him, sinking inch by inch and trying to maintain some level of control. The squeeze sent a delicious throb up and behind the shaft of my cock, scattering my attention. 

He was shaking and hot, and when I lay with my pelvis crushed against his backside and my lips hovering over the back of his neck, he sobbed into the pillow. "Oh God..."

"Are you..." Okay?

I lifted and withdrew slowly, his body sucking at me, holding me, and I hissed a breath between my teeth, plunging back in.

"Don't stop," he spat out between two breaths, raising on his elbows and further pressing our boiling, damp skin together.

And the minutes were golden, each of them taking his discomfort and replacing it with pleasure. I could tell when it shifted over, when his limbs drew up with an entirely different kind of tension, when he gasped a breath with each steady, deep thrust, when he began to rock his body back in time with mine.

When I brushed his prostate, his knees lost their resistence and brought our sweaty bodies flat down on the bed. He worried something was wrong, said the feeling made his body feel funny and unstable, feel like he wasn't in control of it—but with each touch he mastered the feeling, and with great pleasure I noticed how he started moving around to encourage the contact.

Newness sorted out and barriers crossed, we fell into a rhythm, and I loved his body with each measured stroke, overdosed on his low breathing and the catch of noise in his chest and throat. And hearing my name, oh god, on his lips... I forced myself not to think. I let my mind wander. It got to the point where I was merely throwing myself against him again and again. We'd gone far beyond the point of letting go. 

And there came that moment, that painful cinching moment when I knew I just could not hold out any longer. He was still in his rapture, totally open to my thrusts now, his own erection digging into the mattress. I stopped; I clung to his back and the sweat made my hold tenuous at best. 

"Lijah," he sighed, bringing his hands up to grasp my hips.

I buried my face against his shoulder and rolled my pelvis—his fingers held, squeezed, drove me on—once and then again, arching a careful angle. Tensing and shying from the constriction, I held him and let the trembling take my fingers. It gathered force and tore me apart from the inside, exploding in pulses that I felt more internally than externally, and I was moving into him without thinking, and he was panting under me.

I collapsed on top of him and didn't use a muscle or twitch an eyelid for a good thirty seconds. It took that long for the noise of my own heart to quiet enough so that it wasn't drowning out the other noises in the room. I rolled us gently, his back still to my front, and I was still inside of him. Looped an arm around his waist, fingers searching instinctively for his erection. 

I moved to pull out, but his hand closed on my wrist. "No, no, stay...feels..." 

"Okay," I breathed, curling my fingers around him. He was throbbing and halfway there from all the friction with the blankets and I tried to calm down my own body while bringing him to where I was. He urged me faster, didn't care to linger, just needed the release, and I was all too willing. Before long he was squeezing my wrist and choking on my name, pulsing in my closed hand.

The second it was over, exhaustion took over again. I slumped against his hot, damp back, buried my nose in the shorter, spikier strands of hair at the base of his neck, where sweat gently trickled down. We lay there in silence for minutes on end, sweat growing cold, hearts still racing. I broke from him, finally, slid from his body and he gave an audible groan and fell onto his back. I stayed on my side, clinging to him.

Weakly, I crawled to the edge of the bed and snagged a towel from the stack on the floor. Throwing myself back over to Sean's side, I fell, letting the towel drape where it flopped. He snatched it from my limp fingers and cleaned up our mess, and then pushed the top sheet aside to reveal the clean bottom sheet. 

"Technical question," he said, breaking the silence.

"Shoot." No pun intended, love.

"Uh. Will it..."

"When you go to the bathroom next."

"Ah. Gotcha. Thanks. I'd like to do that now," he stated matter-of-factly, and I laughed, quickly kissing his mouth.

"Hurry. I want to use the shower."

He scurried off and came back twenty minutes later, looking accomplished. I laughed at his expression and took my turn in the bathroom. By the time I finished he had replaced the top sheet and flipped the pillows. I slid on a pair of boxers and fell onto the cool, clean sheet, feeling satiated and complete. He nuzzled up onto my chest, laying his head there and closing his eyes. I combed the fingers of my free hand through his hair again and again.

"Love you," he said.

Second time. 

"Love you too," I replied, my voice touched with a drowsy edge.

"And we'll be good tomorrow."

The first words we'd spoken about that today. I smiled. And in that state, with the way we were and the way it felt to have his ear against my heartbeat, I believed it.

 

Watching Sean finally spot Ali coming around baggage was like watching the moment when they'd said goodbye. Not the situation, but rather the sudden surges of primal emotion in both their faces—his softly masculine and hers small and button-cute, brimming with love. 

He saw nothing and felt nothing but her as they shuffled quickly across front of baggage claim. The little carry-on she was holding fell to the floor, forgotten. He swept her off her feet and crushed her against his chest. He covered her face in kisses until she was squealing for him to stop. He buried his nose into her hair and spun her until they teetered dizzily. Something drained out of him, something unidentifiable, and that space was filled with that same unidentifiable thing that had drained from her. 

They were like two very different yet complimentary partners in an unknown crime. And it was strange, and it came all at once to me, that what I was seeing wasn't some alien interaction. I realized that I was simply witnessing a father that was utterly in love with his daughter—in love with not only what she was, but also with the role he played in her life. I'd never seen such natural perfection before. And fuck all if it didn't humble me.

Then came the other side, which I'll tell you, and it isn't just bias here, was of a very different sort. Christine came up with an assistant and a lot of bags. Sean rushed to help, took nearly ever piece of luggage she carried from her, and they exchanged a long stare and a long embrace. She kissed him, slow and soft, and pulled back. And another long stare. I felt curiously numb watching this. 

The image came back to me of him on their porch saying goodbye the day we left California. The way he'd clung to her hands and knuckles over and over, the way they'd bent into each other like two halves of the same whole. There was no such union this afternoon. They tried, and I could see that, but there was a faint recoiling at the end of the effort, when they realized something wasn't exactly right.

And the image of the way Sean and I fit in my mind, the way his belly fit just right in the small of my back, the way my bottom lip fit so snugly under his top one, the way he'd fallen in love with grasping my hips and drawing our bodies together. We had taken on the rhythm that Christine and him no longer had. One had replaced the other, even if it was only on the most physical terms. A thrill that began as triumph and spiraled down into guilt left me tingling.

 

It didn't take long for reality to set in. In movies there's an arch of angst and doubt the protagonist goes through. His descent into self-realization takes up huge chunks of time and is usually the main thrust of the story. But in real life situations are less cinematically pleasing. And in our case, downright simple. Sean, for instance, knew that very evening that he couldn't be Christine's husband for much longer. 

He also knew that they would have to go on keeping a happy face for the public until at least the last premiere was done with. This kind of assumption—that sharing with the public did not automatically follow decisions in private life—wasn't a moral battle; it was the way we had learned to live our lives. We didn't want to have to explain or testify. We didn't want to have to fill in the gap between what the public understood us to be and what we would become to them after our private lives had undergone changes. It was our privilege to keep that within our own families. It was all we had to maintain some kind of normalcy in an otherwise exposed lifestyle.

But the human part of him, the part that had spent the last seven and a half years of his life with this woman, was going to have to die. He would have to move on. His life would never be the same. His family would change. He would be reborn as something painfully new. And seeing her, and feeling the call for change, and absorbing all the implications of it must have hit him immediately.

He called me at around two o'clock in the morning. He was crying and the sound had an odd echo. I assumed he was camped out in the downstairs bathroom; the most privacy he could get besides the basement, where his cell-phone wouldn't work, or his car, which would be noticeable.

"Please don't be mad at me," were his first words. His snuffling and erratic breathing made them difficult to hear.

"Talk to me," I said, all business.

"It's gone," he sobbed, and my heart was pounding and felt as if it were slowly being squeezed. "Even before the break, even, even then, it was there, I mean something was there. I would look at her and feel something. Anything, fuck, God, I—oh, God." I listened. I waited. "It's like a void. Like I'm there, waiting, and nothing comes. Nothing happens. I grab for it, I force it, I want it so badly, because it's...it's all I've ever had, Elijah, I'm sorry if I'm upsetting you, oh, God."

"You're not. Go on."

"I didn't think about you at all this afternoon. It's like you didn't exist. I focused on her. I even forced myself not to get too absorbed in Alex. I wanted to see Chris, see what would happen if I tried to...put myself back where I was. We talked about her trip, Mom, family stuff. We talked about New Year's. And then she went to sleep and I came downstairs to bring the rest of the bags up. And I was standing there looking over at the stereo and remembering you and the Samba. And your eyes when they meet up with my eyes and you give me that look." He voice dipped. "Like I'm the only person in the world. Like you have a thousand things to say and don't have the words to say them. And I remembered every second of our time alone, all at once. And how lonely I felt when I remembered... I can't tell you how bad it was. Felt like someone'd kicked me in the gut. My hands, my body, I literally hurt with needing you there, right there, right then. And then I realized I had to go back upstairs and lie down next to her. Elijah. Oh God." His voice trailed off into tears again.

I didn't know what to say. I began and then stopped. And then started. "I want to say I'll be there in five minutes. But we can't do that. I want to say, fuck, try and make it work with her. But that's pseudo-selfless bullshit. I want to say I'm sorry for ever making you need me or want me in any way. But I'm not sorry. I...I love you, Sean. I love you enough to admit that I don't know what to do. Or how to help you. Or comfort you. I'm out of my league. But I'm not angry. I think maybe the one smart thing I've done so far is have no expectations at all."

"I think I need to sleep," he muttered thickly after a pregnant pause.

"Go to sleep. Be with her, if it happens. I'm serious. Please, Sean."

"Good night."

I sat still with the receiver to my ear long after he'd gone. I drew my knees to my chest and tried to stop the nausea that rolled in my stomach. 

 

Dom and Billy allowed me to drive myself cabin fever crazy for just under thirty-six hours before bombarding my home phone, cell-phone, and laptop with messages. When I answered none, they invaded my flat and refused to leave until I talked. I explained Sean's call and that I just hadn't felt like doing anything afterwards. I was worried, sure, but mostly just dealing badly with the fact that all this was happening and that I was a part of it.

I got a lecture, of course, strewn with twisted British and Scottish slang that couldn't have been complimentary. Billy went out and bought some good imported beer and then came back. All the while I had to stop Dom from calling Sean and trying to work something out to make me feel a little more at ease with the situation. Orli dialed Dom's cell and asked something about the New Year's party being at his beach place—Dom said he'd ask around and quickly ended the call to get back to me. 

A part of me wanted to be alone. I wasn't particularly upset, just unsettled, and the quiet was calming if not too deep. But I also realized that the guys had never seen me this way and that the newness of it was something they'd want to confront and help me with. That was a nice thing.

So we slowly drank what Billy brought back, avoiding getting drunk. Dom took his turn to leave and came back with some Thai food from one of my favorite places. We ate, drank some more, and after a while turned off our cell-phones to get away from the badgering of the outside world.

By the time Billy nudged Dom and suggested that they go home and get some sleep, I was feeling relaxed. They really had helped and I wished I could tell them that, but the words weren't there. Just before leaving they warned me that they'd be dragging me out tomorrow if I didn't otherwise occupy myself. 

 

"She knows something's changed. How could she not? We haven't spent more than a week apart since we were married. She actually tried to say something to me last night, tried bringing up my mood. I brushed it off."

"What did she say exactly?"

"I forget how we got into it. It went, ah...oh! Some running joke we have about needing to use the therapists they have for us. How the filming will drive us crazy. Somehow that segued into her asking me if I was feeling different. I sort of got the vibe that she was going to pry so I changed the subject."

"Subtly?"

"As subtly as I could, yeah. But, well. It's bound to be somewhat obvious."

"What about sleeping together?"

"...What do you think?"

"What'd you mean?"

"Do you think something has happened?"

"Yeah. Simply because it would be another part of testing things out."

"Does that bother you?"

"Instinctively, sure. But not really. I understand."

"We haven't."

"Oh."

"Even if it weren't for me and you. I mean, it's complicated. And we're missing that connection now. So all that equals no sexual urge. That would just make things oddly more complicated. It's not like we're newlyweds anymore, either. With Ali around we've gotten used to not being intimate all the time, so..."

"What does it feel like now?"

"To be honest with you, a lot of the husband urges are still very automatic. Touching her casually, hugging her, it all makes sense. But I do think that if she tried to initiate lovemaking at this point that it wouldn't be something I could do and enjoy. I can't. When I feel that urge now, I think about you. With her, it's like...it's. It's starting at the bottom of the mountain and working my way up the side. With you it's like standing on the peak of the mountain and riding the snow all the way down."

"Seanie. That's downright poetic! I'm blushing."

"I'm here all week; try the veal."

"Bada bump cha!"

"I miss you."

"I know. How long before it's ah, safe, for you to start going out again?"

"It's not that I can't go out. It's just that there was a lot of unpacking and Ali and I don't want Chris to think I've become insensitive because of the work, you know? But I don't have to spend every hour at home. We can see each other."

"I'll call Bill and have him organize a hobbit thing. Is that good?"

"As an excuse, you mean?"

"Well we'd probably all go out. Or crash at Dom's. Don't care as long as you're there."

"I've got to check on Ali..."

"Okay. Call me when you can."

"I will. Be good."

"I will."

"Bye."

"Bye!"

 

"Okay, from the top. You kinda lost me there in the middle."

"Elijah, I am not going through that again. In summary: there's no reason why I have to include you in my explanation. We both agreed that it's complicated enough already, right?"

"Yeah. And I'm not ready for her to know. Like I said, I think you should just tell her everything minus the bit about me."

"And if she asks if there's 'someone else'?"

"Why would she? I mean, besides hypothetically. She would never even assume it would be with a...a man. And you're not really close with any girls here."

"But it could happen, just, you know, thrown out as a possibility. I can see her blurting it out."

"So practice your resounding and convincing no, Seanie. I mean, what else can you do?"

"I hate coming clean and lying at the same time."

"It's a matter of smoothing the confessions apart so as not to kill the woman. She knows something is coming. At least if there's no added parts that will shock her...it won't be as freaky."

"Oh, it'll be freaky. I can't avoid freaky."

"So embrace the freaky and deal."

"I guess so."

 

"Aw, you've gotta see this picture Ali drew of Frodo and Sam. Your eyes are just these two gigantic blue scribbled circles. Kinda scary, actually."

"My flattery cup runeth over. Where are you?"

"Had to take the baby to get her costume and wig resized."

"So you're..."

"Near... Oh, what's that place. That place Dom danced on the bar."

"Oooh, that place."

"That place."

"We can never set foot in that place again."

"Well, after treating the crowd to a healthy view of Dom's, ah, Little Dom, I don't think it'd be a good idea." 

"Come on, you gotta admit that was kinda fun."

"I was drunk. Everything was fun that night."

"Should've taken advantage of you then."

"What kind of girl do you think I am, Elwood?"

"Wow, I am so not going to answer that."

 

"That sure was an impressive whine."

"I'm entitled."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. My boyfriend's gone missing and I haven't gotten laid in days."

"I haven't seen you in a week!"

"Uh. Week. I meant."

"Ooh, you're going to get it."

"Gonna go all Daddy on me?"

"Oh, for the love of..."

"Sorry. Mental images. Unavoidable. Hee."

"If it's any consolation, I'm a bit antsy myself."

"Dom and Billy harass me more. I have to deal with them humping all over each other every day!"

"Yeah? And after they leave your place where do you think they go?"

"To bed?"

"To my house. And you can imagine how worked up they are by that time."

"Ooh, messy."

"Thankfully not yet."

"Sean?"

"Mm?"

"If you want to be with Chris. You know it's okay, right?"

"You keep saying that."

"Well. Because... I mean, you're still married and. And if you get really tense and, well, I dunno."

"I've told you already. Sleeping with her would be like...saying things were normal or okay or whatnot. And they're not."

"I know. Sorry."

 

"I had a kind of an epiphany last night."

"Ooh, fancy. Lay it on me."

"Was going through a bunch of paperwork that my assistant sent along. A lot of charity, volunteer, good-cause stuff. A lot of really worthwhile, important sentiment in all of it. I want to do it all, you know? I want enough time to be everywhere and preach for every one of them. I want to write insane amounts of checks until I get yelled at for being too damn saintly. Then I thought a lot about the people that do these sorts of things. People not like me who just do them when and where they can, but people who spend every waking moment living for their causes. The tragedy and hope that goes hand in hand with so many of these organizations. The power that lies in good acts, in public service, and in, you know, just giving what you have to others."

"Mm."

"And it hit me all at once that if the worst thing that has happened in the last ten years of my life is my wife and I falling out of love with each other, that I don't have much to be sorry about. I've had more, done more, and loved more just by accident and circumstance than these people who need organizations to plead their cases for them. I have a beautiful daughter, wonderful brothers, and a whole new family here. I have you. And if I can't put what has happened in some kind of grander perspective, than I'm not really behind all the philosophy I say I live by."

"That's one hell of a step."

"It feels like it, I'll tell you."

 

"Mmmm."

"Elijah."

"What?"

"What're you doing?"

"Nothin'."

"You're breathing all funny."

"Am I?"

"Elijah!"

"Mmmm."

"You're..."

"Wanna listen?"

"I am not doing this."

"Why not?"

"It's stupid!"

"Not from my end. Oh, stop groaning..."

"Well. I...huh. Shall I, ah, as well?"

"Please do."

"Mmm. Okay."

"Stay with me. Breathe with me. God I miss touchin' you."

"Elijah..."

"Shhh. Just let it happen."

 

"It's me."

"Hey. Where are you?"

"Dom's."

"You're at Dom's?"

"Where are you?"

"...On my way to Dom's."

 

By the time I stumbled through Dom's front door—shuffling past a bewildered Bill—my heart was pounding. A week's worth of waiting compiled and crushed me all at once. Relief was already crawling through my body because I was there, I could hear him, and the afternoon seemed endless. The reward of it softened the tension that had been growing with every passing hour.

He was in the kitchen with Dom and they were talking over coffee. He looked up and tensed when he saw me and I glanced at Dom for just a second before stepping forward. One step it seemed was all it took and we were together—I hadn't even seen him get up but there he was. My fingers sunk into his hair, his arms went fumbling around my waist, and I kissed him, not caring if Dom saw. We almost fell over a chair. I clung to him, his scent and warmth and presence socking me in the gut. I laid my forehead on his, our noses bumped, our lips exchanging breath. My pulse was tripping. Dom stood there with the mug halfway to his lips, the strangest expression on his face as he watched us.

"Hi," I sighed, nudging the tip of my nose to Sean's.

His hands squeezed my back, burned the fabric of my jacket. "Hi..."

"I'll, uh," Dom said, dumping his mug in the sink and then motioning towards the hall. He was gone seconds later, his cheeks pink.

I laid my face against Sean's neck. He brought us towards the table and we sat. I snagged his hands as we separated, lacing our fingers. My mind wound down to normal pace.

"I think we scared him," he said, laughing. 

"Shit." I glanced towards the hall. "I didn't even think."

"He's a big boy," Sean assured me, smiling.

I looked down at our hands. "How long can you stay?"

"I've got a couple hours," he replied.

"That'll do," I said, and leaned into him, catching his lips.

 

The rest of December passed like this. We had most of our time together doing work-related things. Time outside of that involved the guys or visits to his house. I was forced to deal with being in the same room with him and Chris. I got used to it. And my fear that the minute she looked at me she'd know went invalidated. 

(There was one time when I thought that wasn't the case, though. I'd come over early in the morning for reasons I forget now and when Chris saw me she looked down at my chest for a long moment and then laughed strangely and said, "Is that Sean's?" and I looked down as well and realized with gut-wrenching clarity that I was wearing the shirt I'd stolen from their bedroom a while back. It had "UCLA" scrolled across the breast pocket. I felt like a fucking idiot. Luckily she was quick to comment that a lot of Sean's old shirts didn't fit because of the weight he'd had to put on and that she was glad he wasn't just tossing them. Bless her pragmatism.)

That was when the excuses started. I don't think Sean was prepared for the lying he would find himself doing. But then again I don't think either of us were prepared for how badly we would crave being together. And with all the places we could go and as Sean began to tell Chris less and less about his every day activities (he'd never fully fallen back to sharing everything with her after the time they spent apart) it became safer to lie—and lie well.

The first? "We're going golfing." It was a Sunday. He picked me up with golf clubs in the trunk of his car, funny looking shoes on his feet, and a desperate look in his eye. Gravel spun under the tires as we peeled out of the neighborhood. We barely made it to the parking garage at the course. The jerk of the gearshift as he threw it into park made the car bounce on its springs. 

I threw myself over his lap, crushing his lips against mine and jerking the tails of his shirt free of his belt. There wasn't enough space. He tossed the seat back with a muffled curse and a fumble and then tore my shirt up and over my head. We spent the better part of a half hour plundering each other's mouths and grinding in that eternal search for friction that never seemed to satisfy.

I came up for air, muttering. "Backseat? Can we—fuck—fuck..."

"Yeah, move for a second," he replied, pushing me into the passenger seat.

He crawled over the reclined driver's seat and held out his hands for me. I laughed, took them, and fell forward on the combined momentum of my weight and his tug. I pulled him over me, fell on my back, and pushed his trousers down off his hips with my knees. Wet and hot the kisses delved; I wanted all or nothing. My ankles crossed over the middle of his back and I flinched at the restricted space around me. The car shook around us. I sighed against his ear as his hands wriggled my shorts down; they dangled there around my right ankle.

"Now," I veritably begged, voice a whisper, fingers curled around the backs of his thighs. 

And he made up for lost time that afternoon, fucking me through the floor of that damned car with all the tenderness and need that he had built up inside him. Each time we came together it became like that—the cumulative putting forth of all the times before. 

 

The second excuse stumbled into the third and each time after it was over we spoke longer about what he was going to say to her. And the fourth and the fifth where we rushed the few hours we had. And the sixth, using friends' names to explain where we'd been and citing meetings with the crew that we couldn't miss. And the seventh and eighth, sneaking into my house late at night with barely a few words to explain to her why he had to go. 

We were getting desperate. Alibis began to run thin.

He came to my door late at night after ringing my cell twice (our system by then). When I let him in he surged forward and grabbed my shoulders and pushed me against the door I had just hurried to close. His hands under my shirt, caressing flesh and squeezing my nipples, his knee between my thighs searching for that tell-tale heat, his own arousal throbbing rhythmically against my thigh. 

It had been days since we'd been in touching distance, days he spent dodging her questions and finding solace in his daughter, but it all came down to this. And when he sank to his knees there on the foyer floor and swallowed me to the back of his throat, I closed my eyes and let the white crackle and fire under my eyelids.

This dangerous style carried us through to Christmas (which wasn't much of an affair since we'd had our holiday party before the break and the gift giving was set for New Year's). Three days before that party, we found ourselves eking out rapid passion against the wine rack in his basement. With fingers fisted around a top rung and my boxers around my thighs he took me, hard, fast, and possessively—anger had begun to creep into our unions, anger that was the result of mutual frustration and mounting anxiety. The shelves rattled with the hollow clink of glass and wine. When I came he wrapped his hand around my mouth to muffle the cries. When he came he bit down on my shoulder to stop the noise. 

Twenty-four hours later I sat, sorting out my presents for everyone and tracing the red mark that was still imprinted there.

 

I should've known the party was going to be wicked when Viggo presented me with a box of strawberry banana flavored condoms, a hearty handshake, and a wink. I tapped Sean on the shoulder with the lewdly decorated box when Christine wasn't attached to his arm. He nearly asphyxiated with laughter. 

Billy accepted a ridiculously expensive bottle of whiskey from Sean. Dom and the crowd around him exploded with laughter when Sean handed over an official looking computer print out declaring one Dominic Monaghan an honorary Goonie. He clung to Sean, looking somewhat silly and grateful, and my heart turned somersaults. I gave my gifts of CDs to Dom and Billy, though nothing could really top the Goonies thing.

Sean's gift to me was a wetsuit—which was a surprise, because I couldn't recall him ever saying anything about my constant renting and borrowing of them. In thin, slender script down the left leg was written "Frodo". I grinned and held him against my chest for as long as I could. I told him I wanted to give him his gift later when we could be alone.

I lost track of the amount of toasts. I got hugged, back-slapped, pushed from group to group to receive cards, gag gifts, and flowery compliments that were half honesty and half the result of too much champagne. It felt like the entire production team, cast, and crew was crammed into the rooms of Orli's house. The crowd had long-since spilled over onto the patio and the porches where half dozen barbecue grills tended by a catering staff kept everyone fed. Luckily the weather had accommodated. 

Couples wandered down towards the water for privacy and came back flushed and rumpled. These various pairings would provide gossip onset for weeks, but I tried to ignore it. I wasn't in the mood for that kind of fun. I had my fill of the food and the liquor and the noise; I felt refined and solitary. 

Half an hour to midnight, Dom had predictably climbed up on the staircase railing and begun singing enthusiastically to Shania Twain's "Man! I Feel Like A Woman". I asked Sean how the hell that CD had even gotten into the stereo.

"I brought it," he said, grinning deviously at me.

Coughing with laughter, I wrapped my arms around his elbow. "We truly are meant to be..."

Billy hooked Dom over his shoulder and carried him down off the railing, ignoring the flailing protest. 

I grinned and broke away from Sean, plunging into the crowd with relish. There was a slow, unified feel to the party. Maybe it was the mix of people that I didn't know well and people I knew too well, maybe it was of the size and the ordered nature of the catering or the presence of Peter and Fran. Regardless, it felt wholesome. It felt like New Zealand. Everything—including Christine on Sean's arm—felt fine.

Five minutes to, I got a fresh beer and joined the crowd that was slowly condensing near the television set in the main room. Orlando barreled up behind me, throwing his arms around my neck from behind and leaning us forward. 

"Fantastic, yeah?" he giggled drunkenly against my ear.

"Your breath? No, not so much, dude."

"Wanker," he answered, and fell off me and into the crowd.

Laughing, I shared commiserating eye contact with the people that he disturbed. The noisy call of the announcers on the local station quieted the crowd and drew its attention. I spotted my boys littered throughout—Dom and Billy leaning lightly side by side against each other, Sean lifting Ali onto his shoulders with Christine fussing over her little dress, Orlando with one arm around Viggo and the other around John. I sipped from my bottle and tingled with child-like excitement as the last sixty seconds counted down. 

The last ten were chanted with enthusiasm by our crowd as well as the crowd on television and a second after "one" the relative silence blossomed into cheers, shouts, and people groping for hugs and kisses from those around them. Viggo and John kissed either of Orli's cheeks at the same time, leaving him squirming and laughing and punching at them. Billy leaned over very quickly and pecked the side of Dom's mouth. Ali was clapping her hands and bouncing on Sean's shoulder and quickly smothered in kisses from both her mom and dad. Sean kissed Christine lightly, eyes full of affection, and hers were brimming with tears. He frowned and touched her cheek and she shook her head and smiled and moved to take Ali from him. Words were exchanged at the end of which he nodded. They seemed fine. His eyes found mine through the crowd.

I found him later on the beach, standing about a hundred yards from where the surf tossed fitfully. We were alone. I came up behind him and slid my arms around his jacket-clad torso. In one hand dangled the prettily wrapped gift I'd kept to myself all night. He took it and I stood back, watching him tear the paper and ribbon. Inside the box was a fresh copy of Isaac's Storm by Erik Larson—a book Sean was madly in love with and rambled all the time about somehow optioning the movie rights to. He kept losing his copy onset and I'd noticed the last time it had happened that he hadn't bothered to buy a replacement. Along with the book was the audio recording of it in CD format. 

"Oh, man. Oh, Elijah, this is—God I haven't even thought about this in a while! That's so thoughtful of you."

Sickeningly pleasurable to have pinned down such a perfect gift. I was way too proud of that first Christmas, I'll tell you. There needed to be some kind of note made in the history of gift giving about it. 

"It's nothing," I said predictably.

"Bah," he said. "I wasn't expecting anything like this." He slid the gift back into the box and folded the paper over it, setting it on a lawn chair that had been dragged out earlier and left there. After a quick look around he took my face in his hands and tipped our noses together. "Happy New Year, Doodle." He touched his mouth to mine and I sunk against him.

A chilly breeze whipped up sand around us. The black, endless expanse of ocean was lost to the dark but I felt it nonetheless. There was just enough light from the brightly-lit house to accommodate a decent view of each other. 

"Happy New Year," I said. 

He shed his jacket and slung it over one arm and then tangled our fingers, walking us closer to the water.

"What was that back there? She looked upset."

He exhaled heavily. "She said 'We need to talk, Sean.'"

"What did you say?" I asked.

"I said, 'We do.'"

I joined him in the exhaling. "Ah."

"As soon as I can. Maybe in the next few days."

"I wasn't going to request a date," I chuckled.

"I know, I know."

"Are we alone?" I asked, draping my forearms around his neck and bringing us together.

"Yeah. The baby was tired."

I wondered if we'd get the night but didn't feel right pushing for it. He backed up and settled on a flat rock that was wedged in the sand at just right angle for sitting. I sat down beside him and laid my face against the bunched collar of his sweater, inhaling deeply. His fingers turned sweeping circles around my lower back. The depth-pocketed natural silence was calming. His scent and warmth and rhythm were calming. 

For the hundredth time I asked myself what I had done to deserve the privilege of that calm. And it all came down to this finally, to the thing that had been there simply waiting for our acceptance: there was no such thing as fairness. It was just the world, what our brains did, and us. There was no higher anything dealing out guidelines and drawing red circles around forbidden fruit. We would do what we would do and it would either be good or otherwise depending on what role you were playing—and there was no safety net, no reward or even punishment, no big book in which everything would be kept track of. Life just went. It was all about impact. It was all about how people receive the things you do and say. The decisions you make. So it was up to me and him (and even her) to deal with it. 

It was quite possibly the most frightening and liberating thing I'd ever realized. 

Responsibility is a bitch.

 

"Mmm, yeah, tomorrow, but where is she?" I asked half-heartedly. The last bit got smushed sound-wise when his tongue dipped into my mouth. The task of helping him pack up shampoo and toiletries from the bathroom was forgotten. His fingers twisted the fabric of my shirt and then squeezed my thighs, which in response came harder around his waist. His other hand splayed between, cupping and rubbing and deftly defeating the barrier of presented zipper.

"Having dinner with Sarah," he mumbled, removing my shirt and blending our bodies together, dipping me back toward the mirror from where I sat on the lip of the bathroom sink. His mouth was hot against my collarbone.

"Sarah's back?" I sighed, arching higher into his hand, hard and begging, the wet spot at the front of my boxers all the indication he needed.

"Got in last night," he replied, his answer as absent as the question as my hips came off the skin-warmed marble to let the jeans off them. His face was against my chest, even then against my belly, and his tongue danced and guided lips to bite and suckle, and when he hit the crease of my pelvis I moaned aloud, messing his hair beyond the redemption of any brush. My legs spread under his hands.

"Sean." I opened my eyes, watched him duck low and drag his tongue across the fleshy protrusion of my balls. Closed my eyes, groaned, and began to squirm as he placed wet suction-tinged kisses around the base of my cock. "Oh, fuck, yes..." And kept on, watching his mouth fall open, watching his throat relax, watching him take me in one soft swallow—ooh God, yes—and apply friction in a building way that threatened to kill me then and there.

Through the sweat on my skin his fingers smeared, pushing my hips higher, prodding under my body. He wriggled a fingertip against the rosebud pucker there—a choked whimper splintered inside my mouth—and then worked it inside up to the second knuckle, sweeping a slow circle with the buried tip as he sucked the head of my cock simultaneously. My skin smudged the mirror with moisture, shoulder blades digging into the cold glass. His finger filled me, angling in and out in time with the pump of his fist. 

"Oohfuuuckmeee." I sobbed and, minutes later, came frantically in his mouth, nearly falling off the sink with the spasms that claimed my belly and thighs. He choked briefly and then swallowed and lapped at me until I went soft. "Holy," I coughed, laughing, "shit."

He wiped his forearm across his mouth and slid back up my body, fingers nuzzling, chest brushing mine, until our lips met and danced. Still trembling, I licked at his throat and then bit down, making him hiss. "You're fucking incredible."

Kissing again, the sex kind, the delicious kind, with my heels digging into the soft lower pads of his back, my fingers ripping at the belt buckle nestled under the hem of his shirt, with his mouth along the curve of my ear, nipping. I groaned and shoved the pants down around his knees, peeled the cottony cling of underwear from his belly, and his hands grabbed me around my middle and pulled me off the sink. He fumbled through the contents of the box nearest to us and yanked out a tub of Vaseline. A quick spin and its top went clattering noisily to the floor. 

He spun me around and I caught sight of us: his hand splayed over my belly and spent cock, his eyes dark and focused just above my shoulder, his muscled forearms planted on the sink. He slicked himself quickly and bit my upper arm and then kissed the spot. 

"Want you so fucking bad," he growled, petting my stomach and thighs, pressing my nipples. Two fingers curled, slick and sudden, into my body. I bit my lip and leaned forward over the sink, one handing falling on the countertop and the other coming to a stop flat on the mirror with a dull thud. And then the pain of his swollen erection ripping me apart for just a second before the muscles obliged—burned so fast and hot that it felt good. 

A chorus of groans and grunts echoed between us as he spread me wider and fucked me faster against the sink, his palms branding the flesh that they held. He pulled out just before he came with an oddly high-pitched cry. I panted and fell forward against the counter, my knees wobbling. He caught me around my middle, out of breath and covered in a thin sheen of sweat, and brought me back up against his chest, holding me.

"God," he said against my sweaty shoulder blade, clinging to me. "God."

Once we'd recovered the will to move, he started up the shower. We rinsed off together, not speaking, sharing a kiss now and then and passing back and forth the soap that was still unpacked. Clean, he switched the water to a slightly colder temperature so that we could cool off. His nipples beaded under the chill. I bent, drawn to the sight, and kissed them. I kissed the wet slick of chest hair. I kissed his mouth. So full of him and it and us that reality ceased to exist.

I noticed that the bathroom wasn't very steamy. Lamenting the lack of hot water and regretting the switch to cold, I searched with one hand around the curtain for the towels I'd seen hanging there before we'd gotten started. I found the pair, wrapped one around myself and handed the other to him. 

He pushed back the shower curtain and screwed up his face. "Shit, baby, did you turn on the vent?" he asked, turning to look at me.

"No, I just figured..." I motioned to the shower knobs, but my voice died in my throat, because out of the corner of my eye I saw the bathroom door gaping obscenely on our privacy. The same door that had been firmly closed the entire time.

And standing in the doorway just outside stood Christine, clutching her purse in one hand and a pair of high heels in the other, with a face so frozenly blank that there was no doubt in my mind she had passed out standing up.

 

The first thing she said was his name. I couldn't explain adequately what it was like standing there. I was overcome with the most acute mixture of pain, embarrassment, stupidity, and guilt that I had ever felt in my entire life. It was equally ice and fire encased neatly in nausea and glazed with lead, sending it right to the pit of my chest.

Sean swallowed very slowly and closed his eyes. He was dripping all over the tile with the white cotton shining almost too brightly against his bronzed skin. He slid down limply onto the toilet seat. I clutched the edge of the shower wall and allowed myself the same luxury of closing my eyes.

Immediate instinct: lie. Make up some excuse. Find out as quickly as possible how long she'd been standing there and tailor that excuse to her response. Make it a joke. A playful, lying joke. She will want any explanation so long as it's not the truth. 

When she said his name again, her voice was shaking, and she was one step inside the still-warm bathroom. Suddenly everything about the room seemed glaringly obvious to her perspective—the toppled Vaseline jar, the come stains dried dark on the sink cabinets, the fleshy sweat smears on the semi-frosted mirror, and the hastily discarded clothing littering the floor. There was no possible way to lie.

And yet it was hard to accept her sudden presence pasted onto the background of this scene (our scene), hard to see her face or think she was real standing there with red heels now dangling from loose fingertips. Shoes that seconds later hit the floor with a soft clunk, as if she'd forgotten she had power over her grip. She clutched the purse to her chest, shook her head once, and took a step backwards.

"I heard noises, I..." She was shaking her head again; the situation couldn't be addressed with a less denial-laced motion. Her eyes floated softly from Sean to me. When our eyes met, I knew she knew. She not only knew; she understood. Whether or not she'd hold onto that comprehension was anyone's guess. Something in her started. She was backing away—her feet were beating a dull scamper on the hallway rug—and then she was taking the stairs at a quick pace. Far from running, but with the air of someone who wanted very much to be away.

"Go," I said to Sean, thrusting his rumpled pants at him. "Go!"

"Elijah," he breathed, backing farther into the corner. "I can't..."

"What if she gets in her car and tries to drive?"

This appealed to Sean's better judgement. He nodded, tried to hide the trembling of his hands as he slipped on the pants, did them up, and rushed out of the bathroom. 

Numbness teased my skin. I didn't want any part of this confrontation. I didn't want to follow him or for her to see me. But I couldn't just stand there. I took a minute to get dry and clothed and then slowly wandered down the hallway, stopping at the top of the staircase. No one in sight. 

I went down the stairs, heard noises coming from the small guest bathroom, and crept closer. Odd noise for—what was that? And then I realized. She was throwing up. The door was ajar a foot or so. She was collapsed over the toilet and heaving into it again and again. Sean was holding her hair. My throat closed up. Horrific was not a strong enough word for what I felt.

They fussed near the sink. She was rinsing her mouth and grappling with him for a towel and telling him repeatedly not to touch her. The distress in his voice as he begged her to stop and listen to him tore my insides to shreds.

"This is it?" she hissed under her breath. "This is the problem? All these weeks of...because of that kid...?"

"This isn't how I wanted this conversation to go," he pleaded, and they came bursting—him following her—from the bathroom. I backed into the living room, ducking behind the wall and out of sight. "I was planning on telling you."

"Oh, thank you, Sean. That's generous."

"It's not just about this and you know it."

"Ooh my God. I can't believe what I'm hearing." She was whimpering and maintaining anger at the same time. I was completely afraid of her and what she might say. For the first time I realized she might still have the ability to keep Sean with her. "You...and...you like men? When the hell were you going to drop that bomb?"

"I don't like men. It's just...it's just been this time. This is the first time I've ever..."

"What? Gotten horny for someone else? A boy?"

"If you're going to be crude, yes." Annoyance in his voice.

I flinched. Hell, I'd never even heard the woman raise her voice or curse. 

"Elijah," she said, laughing and sobbing at the same time. "Oh my God. We've become the cliché." She choked on another sob and rushed at him, pushing against his chest, more to get his attention than hurt him. "Sleeping with a co-star. We were supposed to be different." She began to cry again and fell back. "We convinced everyone we were better than that."

"If it was just a sexual thing, I never would've let it happen," he said, and his voice was muffled, as if they were very close together. "I didn't come here with disloyal intentions."

"How could he?" she whispered, voice breaking on the last word. "We both...he became...he's just Elijah..."

"He didn't do anything. If anything it's my fault for letting the tension get that bad without trying to stop it. But it's not about him and you know it. Ever since we decided to come down here things have been off."

"Off maybe but not...not this."

"Honey," he said, "we've been having problems for a long time. We haven't wanted them, we've ignored them, we've done everything to keep each other's minds off of them. But it hasn't been okay since Ali was born. With every birthday we get farther and farther from the way it was. You told me yourself you hoped this project would give us a chance to enjoy a new place together...to get back on track. It...it did the opposite. And I didn't want to admit it. I had no one to talk to. Elijah...Elijah filled that space before I was even sure there was a space."

"Why couldn't you talk to me?" 

"This isn't something we can talk each other out of. Not anymore. And that's all the talking would've amounted to. Baby, you can't tell me you've been happy these past few months." Her silence was telling. He went on. "I was being pulled away even before I started feeling differently towards Elijah. This project has opened up so many doors, offered so many connections. I've got a thousand things I want to do that I could skim right off the top of my head and now...I can finally do them. I love you. And I love Ali. I'm not going to walk out. But this isn't about Ali or where I am. It's about you and me. It's about...it's about how I've changed. I'm motivated in ways I just haven't been. I need some measure of freedom, I... I think... I think we settled down too early. I think, now, that we were hasty. We took a chance. God, this isn't how I wanted to say all these things. As if I'm actually going to convince you or say it in a way that won't hurt you..." As he went on, I dared to peek. They were sitting on the center of the wooden floor, and her head was in her hands. But she was listening. "I was twenty-one, Chris. We were idealistic. We were college kids. You were everything I wanted and it all transitioned from college to professional life to the company without missing a beat. The baby came along perfectly. Flawless, every inch of the way. So flawless that we never stopped to conceive of a time when we might grow out of it...when that just wasn't the way we needed to live. People change."

"But I still," she cried, tears in her voice and on her cheeks, "I still love you. That hasn't changed. I still... I forgive you and..."

"I feel the same way," he said. "But it's not what it should be, not that way anymore. I can't deny that I've changed." A sound crested softly in her throat. "Would you rather I lie?"

"No." Another pause and then in a thick, exhausted voice she asked, "You have feelings for him?" to the tone of okay, so finish the story.

I held my breath, praying he would just lie to make it easier for himself. At least if he played it off to attraction...

"I do," he said, and I didn't know why I'd hoped he would be dishonest. 

"Tell me," she whispered, the words vacant (abuse me).

"You wouldn't figure it," he said, "if you didn't know him. Him, and me, you know? We have so much history in common. We have a lot of future in common, too. We've come a long way from that hotel lobby. I've never needed the kinds of things he offers. In my whole life I have never even—and I guess that means it's not about gender. Because I never hesitated. I was never shocked. But right now, right here, he's a big part of me. Of what I want. A part of the freedom I know I can have because we are what we are because we want to be and not because..."

"Of a marriage license?"

"Well. Maybe. Maybe it's that. Not exactly. But it's...it's flexible and it's fine. It's better than fine. And even if it crashed and burned later, well, Chris, it doesn't change the immediate. It doesn't change the fact that I can't pretend now. It feels like...like life is calling me. Demanding my attention and my attendance. And he's a part of the deal. It's important that he's there."

"When did you...when did this...all come together. When I came back I knew something was..."

"I knew that night. I...I'll tell you the truth. The whole time you were away I judged my feelings for him. Woke up every morning going over it all in my head. It felt perfect. When you got back, I knew things had switched around beyond my control."

Again, she was crying. And then he was. I felt like giving in with them. My whole body was a mass of icy shuddering tempted by the promising, warm surrender of tears.

"I'm sorry," he choked out. "Something has to happen. I can't sit still and watch it kill us. Let Ali feel it. That would make it even more unbearable for both of us. Haven't we always looked down on couples that stayed together for the wrong reasons?" 

I guessed she was nodding or agreeing somehow. Or maybe silence was all she had to offer. Either way, Sean's words met no disapproval. 

"Is he still here?" she asked, sounding half asleep now.

"Probably." He sighed. "Please don't take this out on him. He fell into it as much as I did. I think we were both in the same place."

"I want to blame someone," she admitted. "But it would be pointless, I guess. I don't understand this and I don't know if I ever will, but blame is not something I can assign right now." She stood, missed just half a step before righting herself. "I can't see him. I need to be alone."

"Are you sure?" Sean asked, moving to stand with her. She was still clutching her own elbows, still shaking violently. But the initial shock had sunk in.

"Please," she answered and, gesturing in a placating way at Sean, turned towards the stairs.

"Do you want me to go? I can sleep somewhere else," he offered, his voice high and his boyish face gently crushed by the need to say those words.

She didn't have to voice that it if he did go it would be my apartment. She knew. She was going to say something, something along the lines of no, but at the last second her face changed. "Be back tomorrow afternoon. Ali'll wonder where you are." And she was gone.

I came out from behind the living room wall with the grace of a humpbacked leper. I slunk over to him as if the floor between us was prone to sudden, inexplicable collapse. Everything and nothing was the same.

"Let me drive," I said. The words felt like pennies, metallic and bitter on my tongue.

"Yeah."

Supporting him with an arm around his waist, I got us to the car. Every movement seemed slow and difficult. His face was blank during the ride and the consequent walk up to my flat, as well as the short series of steps that ran between the door and the couch. I sat beside him on the cushions and let the silence wash over us, with every intention of saying nothing and just staying where I was all night next to him. At the last second he lay down, putting his head in my lap and closing his eyes. His tears left damp blotches against my jeans.

"Maybe it was easier this way." Words that I meant but was afraid to say. I had to break the silence.

"Quicker," he mumbled against my thigh, shifting around. He pushed up on his elbows. "No worse than I figured it would be. And you know, now that it's said, I don't know how I would've been able to convince her of anything without including you. It only would've gone so far before I hit a wall and had to start lying again." His shoulders went lax and his voice fell. "Can't talk about this anymore. So tired."

"Sleep." I combed my fingers against his hair.

"No, not out here," he protested, taking my hands and hauling us both off the sofa and down the hall into my bedroom. "Properly." And once we were settled under the blankets, he cupped my face between his palms and gave a long, shuddered sigh. "I want to wake up to you." It may heal the frayed edges.

 

He tightened his grip on my wrist. "Just for a while. We have to try."

She was inside, waiting. A week had passed. Phone calls, tense and brief, went back and forth between her and Sean when he stayed with me. But otherwise he was there; smile planted firmly for Ali, no words of consequence passing between him and Christine, tears held in to be shed later once he was alone with me. 

As the days passed he tried to convince me that she was ready to try to understand if nothing else why things had come down to the present situation. She wanted to talk. But I was still afraid of her; unwilling to put myself under her translucent green eyes, eyes that had always made me feel naked that now terrified me.

"Tell me again what she..."

"She said the same thing I told you this morning. If we're going to spend the next year together, we need to at least be able to sit in the same room. You don't have to say anything if you don't want to. Just answer whatever she asks as best you can and we can make our two o'clock with time to spare, okay?"

I removed my fingers from the crook of his elbow mechanically and nodded, making for the kitchen door. "Alright." Sighing, I pushed. Let's do this.

Avoiding directly looking at her, I sat at the opposite head of the table. Sean sat between us. A tiny smile, polite and semi-apologetic, quirked my lips. 

Her face was soft; features tinged pale but otherwise indifferent to my entrance. Her hands splayed across the tabletop, one over the other, and then settled. "If what Sean's been telling me is true, then you know the way I've always felt for him because you feel it, too." Cold crawled over my skin, making my stomach full and heavy and sending it up against my ribs. "I don't know if I believe him. But I also don't have much choice." She tilted her head, catching my eyes. "So you listen. You imagine what it would be like if Sean, tomorrow or next week or next year came up to you and told you that he didn't want to be with you. You imagine how you would feel if he said those words. How life would change. How alone you would feel. And then you'll know what this is." Steeling her trembling expression, she sat higher. "I'm not irrational. It's taken a week to get to the point where I can admit to myself that this has happened. I wonder what would've gone on if I hadn't come home early that night. But that's not important." She shook her head and was silent for a long moment. 

"This is something I never predicted," she continued. "And who could blame me? Or anyone? No one ever plans for this, even though they may intellectually hypothesize about what they'd do or feel. It's a rude shock because it's a rude shock. Period." She looked at Sean and back again at me. "You know, it's funny. I see it now. The way you look at each other even though you feel like you shouldn't be with me here. The way that when one of you shifts around the other does the same." She unfolded her hands and dropped them in her lap, looking distracted. 

"I want you to know exactly what's happened, is what I'm saying, Elijah," she said. "I don't blame you. I don't hold you responsible. I don't expect you to do silly, self-defeating things. But I do expect you to be aware. I expect you to use those gigantic eyes and that old soul you've so famously come into possession of to accept the damage along with the prize." The words were on my tongue that Sean wasn't a prize, that that wasn't how I saw it, but speaking was not possible. My mouth was so dry it felt like two halves clamped together with stucco. "And we've still got a job to do. We have to maintain the new housing. We have scripts to memorize and interviews to give and magic to make. And we will. Because if I lose that, lose even the small part I play in it, I'll be losing whatever is left that I'm able to claim as my own. Don't mess this up for us. Love him, but don't let it disturb what we came down here to do. And don't you dare," she paused, eyes filling with tears, "mess up his career. You watch what you do and what you say. I know I've lost an edge. I knew it the moment his signature sat drying on that contract. But I still have enough authority to say that we've both put a lot of work into his career and into our company. And even if it kills me to keep it going, I will. I'll make it worthwhile. And we have a daughter. We'll keep her happy as long as it's in our power. I'm not such a bad judge of my own husband's character that I've lost touch with the fact that he'd never let anything, even separation, mess up his relationship with Alex. You remember that you're only second or third on his list of priorities. You handle that. Because if you can't, it won't ever work." 

The silence buzzed deafeningly in my ears. My body was lead in the chair, hands flopped and useless on my thighs, numb from head to toe. Sean was grinding a napkin to bits between his fingers. 

The worst of it? She was right. Every word, every sentiment. Her rightness made me feel small and immature and more importantly, unworthy. I was caught between them, weighing the sudden realization of exactly why Sean chose this woman against the painful need to prove myself to them both. Ideals. I found myself nodding, jaw clenched.

"You're right," I said, in the humblest, most respectful tone I could manage.

"But do you agree?" she pressed.

"Yea-yes. Absolutely."

Sean took a noisy breath and sat up. "You didn't have to do that."

"Yes, I did," she countered gently, giving half a smile in my direction. "You've got a long way to go. You can't get your mind around that now and you don't want to. But if you're going to have any kind of a start at all you need to learn not to shy away. From anything that's a problem, not just things like this. Maybe, years from now, we'll all look back at this and feel fine." She stood, fingers gripping the table's edge with knuckles turned white. "But right now all I can do is keep trying. Don't ask anything else of me, please. I don't have to ask you to keep on doing the things you've always done, Seanie, because I have no doubt you'll do them. And I think you've rubbed off on Elijah in that respect. There is still trust in that I know you're both good men. Despite it all." Her hand left the safety of the table, shaking. She cupped it in the other and moved to the back of the kitchen.

Sean got up and followed and leaned to quietly say something to her. She nodded and then shook her head and then turned back to the bright afternoon view the window provided. He came back to me, visibly frazzled, and guided us out into the hall. I thought we'd stop there but he didn't want to and instead kept pressing my back, moving me out onto the walkway and down the driveway and to his car. 

Inside—my hands clenched and his on the steering wheel—he exhaled bracingly. "She's amazing, isn't she?"

"She is," I agreed, feeling no jealously at the note of love in his voice. The same sentiment was probably in my voice as well. She was a fantastically strong person.

He combed fingertips through my hair and cupped the back of my neck, tipping my head and kissing the corner of my mouth. "Let's go home."

 

There was a brief, notable moment of hesitation. Some days later, having spent at least three of those with friends (Sean not included), I sat in my car with the engine idling and my fingers around the gearshift. 

The thought occurred that I could just turn the car off and go back inside and call him and tell him to forget it. Just let relapse happen, even if it took forever. Let us both go back to our normal, careless, angst-free lives that we had before. Let what we found together shrivel and dry and adopt instead the pattern maintained before it. I don't know why I had the thought other than that it was a possibility. And this idea, though depressing, was almost comforting, almost tempting. A not-so-easy way out that would be publicly smooth for all of us. 

So I sat there memorizing the shape of faded denim around the knees of my jeans and watched through my rear mirror the occasional car come down the block. I let the consequences that would follow a decision like that play out in my head. My world shrank. My heart pounded twice, three, and then four times. I turned on the radio. Something swelled in my stomach, a sharp discomfort that came over me like a shiver. I shifted the car into reverse and smiled.

 

I came inside from the small balcony, swiping cigarette ash off my pullover. Sean had gotten a room with the view of the mountains, and that was the excuse I had waiting in case someone asked why I was there so late at night. Everything felt different when we looked at each other now. It felt perfectly isolated, as if we'd left Wellington and the whole mess behind. And when he crept up behind me with a towel loose around his hips and his damp chest bled moisture through to my back as he held me and felt for the tie at the front of my pajama pants, I continued believing it.

 

He slept, curled into the passenger seat like a kid, during the drive to Waikato. The empty dirt road afforded me plenty of chances to watch him. We were chasing clear skies in a northeasterly direction, leaving behind the early morning clouds that had sat huddled over Huntly for the choppy fluff-streaked blue that the area around the Hobbiton set offered. 

The previous night, half asleep in his arms, I'd felt the sudden need to see the place with him—to experience it without instructions being drummed into my ear or a costume weighing down my shoulders. And every beaten mile took us closer to our time, to our immediate future. Back to the healing theme again, back to mind over matter, back to a place where we had it under control.

I parked the car on the side of the road like they'd suggested and got out, inhaling the crisp earthy scent that tickled my nose. I roused Sean and grabbed a jacket for him from the backseat of the car. "We here?" he muttered sleepily, getting into the flannel with one side of his hair ridiculously smooshed upward. Giggling, I fixed it, and slid my arm around his neck, crooking the elbow around. 

We climbed the hill. It was steep enough to block the small valley below from view. My stomach churned expectantly. I could see the glare of brave sunlight broken through and cascading over the lip of hill like a welcoming beacon. Coming over the top that light blinded me, soaking my vision all at once though I should have been prepared. We both put up and arm and leaned into each other for safety as we trotted down the other side. There came a point where we'd dipped low enough so that the mainstay of the light was blocked by the opposite rise of the valley.

I lowered my arm and blinked colored dots from my vision. The set came into focus. The bright that still framed the hill's edge from behind cast shadow and glow over the wash of green and rainbow that was scattered around the hobbit hole fronts, but was restricted enough to give us a clear view. Tiny gardens sat there, natural and entirely real. Softly worn cobblestones dotted the front of each. There was no sound at all to carry on the equally nonexistent breeze. 

"My God." I tugged his jacket sleeve and lead us on, all the way along the curve of the set and right up to Bag End. I'd seen it before on a very quick tour of northern North Island sets, in one of its unfinished incarnations. But this thing in front of me was prepped almost completely for filming. I ignored the "private property" signs and stepped right through the functioning gate and onto the walkway. 

"Elijah," Sean said warningly, hurrying to follow. 

The plants in front of Bag End were by no means a garden, but the whole thing was easily three times bigger than the rest of the hobbit hole fronts. To get the shot, I thought. I wandered closer, reaching out a hand to the greenery. My mind spun with camera angles and time lapse sequences and post-production color grading. It'd be Sean in the shot. It had to be. 

Sam's hands are full of earth and his eyes are translucent hazel.

His fingers stopped mine from touching the outstretched blossom. "Hey." He tucked my hand in his. "Are you okay? I wouldn't go groping that."

I nodded and stepped back a bit, panning my gaze across the whole hump of the hill. "It's fucking fantastic, isn't it? And the camera hasn't even seen it yet. They're going to turn this thing into a reality. They really are."

Angling me away from the shrub, he took me against his chest. He nudged our noses together. I looked up in time to watch a stray bit of light catch his hair and immediately laughed at that; an outdated image from an expired dream. I shook my head and pushed us back into the shade.

"I am insane, you realize," I said, kissing him.

"Mmm." He dug his fingers into my back pockets, cupping me close. "I know. I've read the fine print."

"Good," I replied, "because I haven't."

"Now Mister Frodo..."

"Oh, don't."

"I was feeling the ambiance."

The tips of my fingers traced the laugh lines as they crinkled at either corner of his eyes. 

"What're you thinking, little Hobbit?"

"The world's started again," I said. 

He raised his eyebrows and I just shook my head, grinning.


End file.
